


Sweetheart of the Rodeo

by stilitana



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Brain Surgery, Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Disabled Character, Falling In Love, Forgiveness, Friendship, Head Injury, Independent New Vegas (Fallout), Insecurity, Medical Trauma, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Canon, Recovery, Scars, Speech Disorders, Trauma, Yes Man + Courier Power Couple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-04-24 06:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 44,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14349834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilitana/pseuds/stilitana
Summary: (Your face does the thinking — two to the skull, yet one gets up.)Once, a no-account package courier crawled from her grave to face the desert only to accidentally usurp a dynasty and forever change the fate of the Mojave. Now all that's left to do is to enjoy the spoils.(Or: in which the Courier and Yes Man discover that creating an independent New Vegas was the easy part; figuring out what comes next may take a while.)





	1. When You're Smiling

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone. This fic has been an absolute trip to write. It just wouldn't let me go until I'd finished it, so here it is, my tribute to New Vegas. What makes the Fallout franchise special to me is that blend of the silly with the sad, the absurd and often dark humor that saturates this world of incredibly unique, flawed characters just trying to get by. I hope I manage to capture a little of that tone here, I tried. First chapter is a bit short just to set the scene, the rest will be longer.
> 
> Music is really important to Fallout so each chapter of this is coupled with a song because it helped me with atmosphere. It's not important to the narrative so it's up to you if you want to listen.  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC_XM4l1DHo)
> 
> As always, comments and critique really make my day and are much appreciated. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello dear reader! Thank you for reading! Feel free to contact me on tumblr at [stilitana](https://stilitana.tumblr.com/).

Soft music wound its way through the ghostly halls of the Lucky 38, echoing as though in a dream through every floor. On a pile of cushions and blankets on the ground in front of a massive screen sprawled the Courier, spurred boots on her feet, hat askew, tilting back a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla into a crystal champagne flute. A box of snack cakes lay open beside her, mountains of caps scattered about along with bottles of soda and alcohol.

“So...now what, Yes Man?” she asked, looking up at his face on the screen.

“Well, this is the part where Benny would probably have used the Securitrons to establish a brutal autocracy. But it’s really up to you. You can do whatever you want!”

“I, uh...I think I’m doing that,” she said.

“Really? That’s funny! You haven’t done much more than take a lot of naps, talk to me, and sample House’s ample liquor supply!”

“Uh-huh. That’s, um. That’s the life, Yes Man.”

“Wow, you sure are different from Benny. And just so you know, that can only really be a complement, coming from me. But he had so much ambition, he never would’ve asked me what next!”

“Well, he probably should have, ‘cause look around, you got us here.”

“Aw, don’t be so modest, Courier Six. We did it together.”

She smiled up at him. “I don’t think I want a, uh...auto…”

“Autocracy.”

“Thanks. Do...do you want that?”

“I don’t know. I never really thought about this part because, well, I figured whoever got here with me would just tell me what to do, and that would be that. So, if a dictatorship was what you wanted, I guess I’d help you.”

“Yes Man, we’ve talked about this. We’re, um...partners. I’m not gonna boss you around like that, y’know? But, um, here’s the thing...I don’t know much about government. I don’t think I’m cut out for, er, politics, and I don’t wanna be the next House, so...where’s that leave us?”

“You’re asking what I think we should do?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, in that case, and this is just a _suggestion,_ Courier Six, but we _could_ just...do nothing at all! Your position is secure here in the 38. We have an army of Securitrons at our disposal, so you’re the most well-protected woman in the Mojave, and you’re fabulously wealthy. You're free to enjoy life!”

“I like that you’re saying ‘our’ now.”

“I’m learning! It might take me a while, but it sure is going to be exciting.”

“So...anarchy?”

“Pretty much,” said Yes Man. “I mean, you can use your resources however you choose.”

She was quiet for a while, sipping her drink and thinking. “Use the Securitrons to patrol trade routes...work out deals with the caravans...we could do that?”

“Certainly.”

“I wanna help the Followers and Freeside.”

“Consider it done!”

“I want...us to throw a dinner party?”

“Well, as long as you don’t expect me to have anybody to add to the guest list, sure! You’re kind’ve my whole social life,” he said.

She gave him a big, goofy smile. “I’m sure you’ll have lots of friends soon.”

“Well, until then, this is good, too. I like it when it’s just the two of us! This is, well, the happiest I’ve ever been!”

“Maybe me too,” she said, scratching her head. “Do you want to pick a new...um...do you want me to call you something else, now that you’re, you know...your own guy?”

“A new name?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t know, that seems like a really difficult choice to make...I’d have to think about it more.”

“That’s fair,” she said. “I mean, uh...I never did.”

“You mean Courier Six isn’t your given name?

“Um, no,” she said, and then caught his tone and began to laugh. She was getting better at that every day.

“Yes Man, I wanna give you something,” she said, standing up on shaky legs. Since Goodsprings she’d been unsteady. Her hands shook so badly that she’d been abysmal with firearms for a long time, relied on dumb luck and then on Ed-E to keep her alive until she met Boone, who spent many a silent, patient hour in Novac steadying her hands in the T-Rex’s mouth, teaching her techniques to help her compensate for the shakes. Sometimes she got full-body tremors, and sometimes those became spasms. She tried not to think about it. If she could convince herself it was fine, maybe it really would be.

She stumbled up to the screen and hesitated, took a deep breath before leaning up on the tips of her toes and giving it a quick kiss. She leaned back down and bounced back on her heels, looked up at Yes Man.

“Oh...wow, Courier Six. No one’s ever done that before.”

“What did you think?” she asked. “Was it...did you like it?”

“I like everything about you, Six.”

She blushed. “Um, good. I just wanted to make sure you know you’re not, um...I’m not like Benny. I didn’t just use you to get into the 38, I...really, really like you, Yes Man.”

“Wow. Do you have any idea how amazing that is? You really know how to make a Securitron feel good, Six. I don’t know many humans, but you really are special, aren’t you?”

“We’re going to have a lot of fun together, Yes Man,” she said.

“I hope so,” he said. “If you don’t mind, well, could you...could you do it again?”

She smiled and pressed another kiss to the screen. She pulled away and smiled. “Come on, let’s look around, see how we want to, um, decorate.” She turned away and started across the room. Suddenly it felt as though the world were rushing away from her. Her knees buckled and she crumpled to the floor.

“Courier? Are you ok?” asked Yes Man.

Trembling, she pushed herself up. Her head was spinning, her vision going black at the edges. Her knee ached, but that was an old injury. When Arcade looked at it he said judging by the scarring and how it had healed she’d been shot there once, shattered the kneecap. She couldn’t remember, had to take his word for it. “I...I think so,” she said, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them. “I, uh...I think I’m sick or something, Yes Man. I think...I’ve been sick for a while.”

“It seems like it’s been getting worse,” he said. “It happens more now.”

She nodded. “You’re right,” she whispered. “I didn’t want it to be true, but...it’s not going away.”

“We should call a doctor, Six.”

She sighed. “Ok. Ok. You’re right. Um...I know one. A doctor. Dinner party. Let’s invite.”

“Ok,” said Yes Man. “We’ll get you well again, Courier, don’t you worry.”

She smiled and braced herself against the wall, got back on her feet. She sighed. Yes Man jumped from the screen into his Securitron body and rolled over to her. She linked her arm in his and together they made their way through the empty casino where no one else had walked in decades.

There was much to be done.


	2. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Courier and Yes Man show off their new casino mansion.  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sinMvuvIdz8)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit more scene-setting/character establishment to serve as the jumping off point for the rest of the story.  
> I am beta-less and am doing my best to edit this myself but of course there may be things I miss. If you catch anything please let me know.
> 
> As always, comments/critiques are lovely, and thanks for reading. :)

Long since her rescue from a shallow grave in Goodsprings, after many days and nights wandering the Mojave with only the animals and the bandits to break up the solitude, Courier Six found herself surrounded by good company in the Lucky 38. She sat on a low sofa in what had once been a cocktail lounge and then a vacant grave for cobwebs for many, many years, but was now slowly coming alive again. Six had a glass of white wine on the stool before her, the beret Boone had given her sitting crooked on her head where the hair had mostly grown back since being shaved by a doctor in Goodsprings who was a little more out of practice as far as brain surgery goes than was entirely in her favor, but she held no grudges. She had long since stopped trying to hide the disfigurement of her face, at least from the people in this room. At her back was the curving glass panorama which provided a view of the desert which gave and took in turn.

Ed-E rested in her lap, his solid weight grounding her, his gentle humming and occasional beeps keeping her present as they had since she repaired him in Primm with nothing but scrap metal and determination (with loneliness and longing.) Before him she’d tended to get lost, float right out of her head and lose whole hours. She still did sometimes, but far less. The moment she saw him she became aware that something inside her had snapped a while down the road without her noticing or remembering and she became manically fixated on repairing him. By then she had an inkling she wasn’t going to get by on intelligence. ( _I’m sorry little lady, I did the best I could,_ the doctor said once she woke, with such guilt and pity in his voice, and she hadn’t understood at the time, she didn’t know what made him look at her and say that as she struggled to string a sentence together in response, tell him it was ok.) But she had other skills, surely. Mechanical repairs were not among them. But if nothing else, she could salvage him by scrounging. He had been with her ever since. She considered him her oldest friend.

At her right stood Yes Man, who supported her as she leaned against him. She pressed her ear to his side to listen to the whirring. He was faintly warm. Between the two of them she felt as safe as she could ever remember being.

The rest sat before them on their mismatched furniture having received their invitations via Securitron to the inaugural dinner party of the new Lucky 38. She hadn’t been sure they’d all come but when they began to show up early in the evening her smile had grown and grown until it resembled Yes Man’s and she couldn’t seem to stop. Not all of them looked so sunny.

“You’re here,” she said, beaming. It wasn’t the first time she’d said it but by now they’d learned to be patient with her. They’d been mingling awkwardly, most of them drinking a little more than they might otherwise from the discomfort, but when everyone had arrived they’d sat down and grown quiet, waiting to see what this was all about. Six had tried drawing them all into conversations, to get them to share anecdotes about themselves or funny stories, but it hadn’t gone exactly as she’d hoped. Well. She couldn’t make them like each other. Lord knew it took her long enough to get to know them herself.

Raul sat near her on a wooden chair, hat in his lap like a gentleman. He’d shook his head when he saw her in the doorway of the casino, leaning against Yes Man and grinning like her face was going to split.

“Well, boss,” he said. “Surprised you remembered old Raul, living in a palace like this.”

“Never,” said Six. “I could never.”

They both knew that she could.

Since she’d first heard his voice on Black Mountain Radio she’d been enamored, and when she stumbled upon him in his cell for a full minute she’d been tongue-tied and speechless as though meeting a childhood hero. For her he’d always be legendary, the mythic Raul Tejada, ghoul mechanic, captured and kept alive by his own wit, the embodiment of the desert they both wandered, him for so much longer. It was in him, the Mojave. When they’d first started traveling together she’d made him nervous. She was clearly unwell and the things she said and did didn’t always make sense. Back then she’d worn sunglasses and a stormchaser hat all the time but he was observant and didn’t need to see the proof to know she’d been knocked around a time too many, and injuries like that got you killed in the desert. Lesser things got you killed in the desert. But even so he was too tired and lonesome by then to abandon her, the only companion he’d had for so long who never seemed to grow tired of him or show any sign of leaving him behind, so he wouldn’t do the same. And before long she’d charmed him with her generosity and her wonder, her strange humor, the desperate lengths she went to when trying to communicate with him when words eluded her.

“You the boss or the president of this joint?” he said, pretending to give the Strip a critical look, like he thought it could do with some renovations.

Six looked at Yes Man. The hulking Securitron looked ridiculous beside her. Raul didn’t know what to make of the thing.

“Neither. Co-director,” she said, giving the Securitron a goofy smile that caught Raul off guard with its immense fondness. He knew she cherished Ed-E, that much was clear by how she held the robot at night when she couldn’t sleep, in the way she’d speak to it in nonsense beeps, and in how often she’d asked him to look the eye-bot over and make repairs as though life itself depended on Ed-E functioning as smoothly as possible, but this was something else. He’d never seen somebody look at a robot like they shared an inside joke before.

“Yes Man said we can’t be co-luminaries,” she said.

“I only said that someone with less sense of _extravagance_ might go for a more simple, direct term, but that’s what makes you so great! And anyway, we’re not really in charge of anything other than the Securitrons.”

“For him that means he doesn’t like it,” said Six, rolling her good eye.

“You two running it together?” Raul said, doing a good job at keeping his surprise at a mild, polite level. He’d seen a lot stranger things.

Six nodded and reached over to place one hand on the Securitron, at the height of her chest. It was a protective, almost possessive gesture. The thing loomed over her, making it seem like a silly thing to do.

“Well, you’re really in charge,” said Yes Man. “All of this is thanks to you. If it weren’t for you, I’d probably never have left that room!”

Six tapped the Securitron with the tips of her fingers a couple times in quick succession, exhaled sharply through her nose. “It only worked because it was us,” she said.

“Well, if you say so, it must be true.”

Raul decided he’d figure out the details of what had gone down later, and went inside to sample the many eclectic dishes set on the table. Six’s cooking knowledge was largely limited to what could be roasted over a fire in the desert, but Raul had never been a picky eater.

Next came Arcade and Veronica, both of whom had just gotten off their shift with the Followers for the day, and were bickering good-naturedly about a patient. They got along well, if superficially, rarely talking about anything that wasn’t related to their patients or research. Of course, it had only been a week or so since they’d both settled down enough to meet and work together.

That meant they’d both already met Yes Man, as well, with varying degrees of pleasantness. They were the ones Six had been a little worried about, given Veronica’s past with the Brotherhood and Arcade’s general cagey weirdness. (She’d never learned to read him well, despite considering him perhaps her closest human friend. She trusted all of them, but her trust in him was special because she knew that from the moment they’d met something in him had made him want to help her, and even when they disagreed, especially about Ed-E, there was never a moment when she doubted he had her best interests at heart. Arcade was, simply, good.)

Then came Boone, who since the dam was as silent and withdrawn as he had been when they first met in Novac. She hoped he just needed time to process it all. They hadn’t had a real conversation in ages. He’d gotten distant, and then she’d been wrapped up at the Strip for so long she lost track of what he’d been up to. This, too, was alright. She knew he had his own issues to resolve.

She would have invited Cass, but she’d left the desert a while ago with a promise she couldn’t guarantee to come back some day and tell Six wild tales about the world she’d never seen or couldn’t remember. Six liked to think that Cass was proud of her. She did a good job of hiding her shock at Six’s instrumental involvement in recent events, but Six could tell she’d never dreamed it would be possible. She hoped it was a good kind of surprise. She hoped that Cass was having adventures and good booze and untroubled sleep.

“Yes Man and I, we want...we wanted you all to...because you’re our friends, and it’s been a while, so we wanted to see you and hear from you and tell you something, by having...we want to have a…” She made a helpless, frustrated sound and turned her head, exposing the scarred half of her face to them and whispering to Yes Man. “Drinking and food and music and lots of people.”

“A party!” Yes Man said, jovial, as if this were just a game of charades they were playing.

Six nodded. “Yeah, that. Make one for that, please,” she muttered to the Securitron.

Arcade could guess she meant make another card. They hadn’t had time yet to discuss her having regular appointments with the Followers, but he was pleased to see she remembered and was using some of the methods he’d told her about not long after they met, when they got to know each other well enough for him to understand it wasn’t just a general ditziness that was troubling her. (At least that wasn't the cause of the motor, speech, or memory issues. The rest he blamed on her own poor judgement and impatience.) He noticed how the casino, so much like a crypt when he’d first seen it, was starting to look lived in, in the peculiar way the Courier and the Securitron made a place looked lived in. There were scraps of paper stuck around written in her wobbly script. They were labels. _Staircase, screen, bar, window, whiskey, blue._

“Will you tell them what we planned before?” Six mumbled. “It’ll be better.”

“If you say so,” said Yes Man. “Courier Six would like—”

“And I,” said Six.

“Pardon?”

“Courier Six _and I._ ”

“You’re right, that _is_ what you said before, isn’t it? I’m sorry, I just wasn’t sure if you really meant for me to say that, or if you were being, you know, polite, because I’m not sure it really _means_ anything to them if I would like—”

Six sighed and patted him. “It’s ok.”

“Thank you, you’re so understanding. Alright. Courier Six _and I_ would like to make sure you all know that all of you have rooms here and are welcome at any time. We would love to have you and want you to feel _happy_ here. Everything you’ve done has meant a lot to... _us_ , and... _we_ wouldn’t have managed to get here if it weren’t for your help along the way. So make yourselves at home and if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to ask!”

“But...no pressure,” said Six, giving them her lopsided smile. “You have lives, I know, you’re busy. And maybe not all of you are happy about, well, what we’ve done. But I just thought...m-m...maybe. Sometimes. Like now. You might like to visit.”

Arcade valued his privacy. This she understood, and expected him to politely, if awkwardly, tell her he’d love to spend time together but didn’t think he’d be staying in a room anytime soon. Before he got a chance, Veronica said, “Are you serious? You mean we have rooms in this place?” she said, looking around with glee. “But—but this place is _amazing._ I mean, don’t get me wrong, it could stand to have some deep cleaning and decoration changes, but—oh, wow. Wow, Six. Are you sure? I mean...this is like, your place!”  
Six beamed. “It’s ours,” she said, bumping her side against Yes Man.

“Well, this timing couldn’t be better,” said Veronica. “Because Arcade and I just got evicted.”

“Veronica,” Arcade hissed. “We talked about this, you said we’d wait and discuss it later. We’re not homeless,” he added at the end, looking up at Six and giving his usual bland, unconvincing smile.

“The Followers are so overcrowded they hardly have room!” Veronica said. “We’re two to a bunk! Maybe you like living in squalor, Arcade, maybe you like sharing a bunk—”

“I don’t like sharing a bunk,” Arcade said in a small voice.

“But I don’t, and I’m not gonna when there’s all this space!”

“That’s exactly why I can’t in good conscious get comfortable in my own room while people are sleeping on the streets in Freeside,” Arcade snapped. “There are more than ever since—er.” He coughed into his hand. “Since, you know what.”

“Oh, wait,” Six muttered, nudging Yes Man. “That one, do that one, too.”

“Oh, right! Six and I also wanted to let you know we’ve got some big plans for both the Strip and Freeside! We know that recent events have made your lives a little more chaotic for the time being, but we’re working on some projects to help out with that. Of course, this is where you come in, Mr. Gannon, Ms. Santangelo…”

Veronica snorted and Arcade blinked incredulously up at Yes Man, then turned an accusatory glare at Six.

“Did you program it to call us that?” he demanded.

Six bristled. “I didn’t program _him_ to do anything, Arcade. He’s just polite, and he got nervous to meet you guys.”

Arcade’s brow wrinkled. “It’s programmed to get nervous?”

It was always surprising to see Six get angry, especially to Arcade, who sometimes forgot that she could, even though it was directed at him more than anyone else. Her face became red in blotches on her cheeks and her mouth would tremble as if she were about to cry, though that was not the case.

“ _He,_ Arcade,” she said, her voice strained. “He.”

“He what?” Arcade said.

Veronica elbowed him and whispered from the side of her mouth, “You called it an it.”

Six stomped her foot and smacked her hand down on the armrest. Ok, so she was really getting mad, Arcade noted. It had been a while since he’d seen her agitated enough to use such obvious nonverbal cues. _This is not the time to analyze her health, Arcade,_ he thought with a wince.

“It’s really alright, Six!” said Yes Man. “I’m _not_ offended! I was programmed to be polite, just not by you!”

Tears sprang to the Courier’s eyes. She scrubbed them away with the back of her hand. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

It wasn’t uncommon for her emotions to tug her around like that, flying from one extreme to the next without giving her any time to relax. It always left her exhausted, usually after a meltdown of some sort.

“It’s ok!” said Yes Man. “I sure wish I could tell you that in a different tone of voice, I don’t mean to sound mocking.”

“I know,” said Six, already regaining her composure. “I know, you’re good, Yes Man.”

Arcade cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Six, I didn’t mean to upset anybody, I...honestly, I’m still not really sure what I did, but...I’m sorry?”

Veronica came and sat on the couch beside Six, wrapping an arm around her and rubbing circles on her back, making soothing, shushing sounds. “It’s alright,” she said, shooting a glare at Arcade, aware that on Six’s left side where her bad eye was she wouldn’t catch it. “Arcade’s just a big dumb moron, he doesn’t mean half the things he says.”

“Hey,” said Arcade.

Six laughed. Apparently she was already over it. Arcade sighed. He couldn’t be expected to keep up. “Let me show you around!”

She stood up on trembling legs and imediately leaned against Yes Man. Arcade noticed her limp was acting up. She was favoring her left side again. Yes Man wheeled forward slowly so she could rest her weight against him. They crowded into the spacious elevator and left the cocktail lounge.

“We’ve been making some changes, but not really decided how to decorate yet,” she said.

On the next floor she opened the door to one of the suites and said, “Ta da! They’re, um, well...you can decorate them however.”

The room had a double bed, a desk, dresser, all the typical things, aside from the multitude of toy rockets and dinosaurs lining the shelves, along with junk they recognized as stuff she’d salvaged in the desert, old clocks and baseballs, snowglobes and mugs.

Boone started laughing, which startled everyone except Six, who smiled abashedly at him. “I, uh. Once I got a lot of money I went back to Novac and bought them all.”

“It’s perfect,” said Veronica, hugging Six with such force she almost knocked her over. Six wobbled, leaning back against Yes Man and taking off her cowboy hat, holding it to her chest. She blushed.

“Glad you like it,” she said.

Veronica ruffled Six’s hair. “Where’s your room? You better not be sleeping on the couch for our sake!”

Six gave her a smile somehow both shy and mischievous. She pointed up. “Penthouse,” she said.

Veronica squealed. “Show me your room!”

“Well...ok,” said Six. She never was hard to convince.

Boone was almost dead on his feet from the long day’s travel and Raul’s joints were acting up so the two of them declined and turned in for the night while the rest continued up to the penthouse, Veronica dragging Arcade along by the wrist.

“Here it is,” said Six, quietly, when the elevator stopped with a soft ding. She was rubbing her temples, wincing.

The room was dimly lit by the warm glow of a lamp beside the bed which was a nest of blankets and pillows. It was decorated in dark, rich colors, warm browns and reds, from the drapes and banners hung over the walls. There was a large open space covered by a big woven rug where various books and tools were scattered and over which hung a screen. There was a little desk facing the screen on which sat sheets of paper covered in Six’s laborious scrawl. Arcade wandered over while Veronica and Six perused her wardrobe which boasted an impressive collection of coats and hats.

Many phrases and words were written over and over, with little improvement in the penmanship. _Courier Six, Lucky 38, New Vegas, Mojave Express…_ His eyes skimmed the page and a flush came to his face when he saw his own name, along with her other friends. There were others he didn’t recognize. _Joshua, Ulysses, Christine, Benny…_ And Yes Man, he saw, with...with lots of shaky little hearts around it.

He turned away. He felt guilty, as if he’d been snooping, despite not having seen anything he could call private.

“This is where we play games,” said Six, leading Veronica over to the rug. “We like, um…”

“Go Fish,” said Yes Man.

Six smiled and nodded. “Going fishing, yeah. Oh, this is our radio,” she said, going over to the desk and lovingly patting the rickety old thing before clicking a button. The sound quality was a little crackly, but about as clear as it got in the Mojave.

“You guys share this room?” Veronica said. She was an expert at keeping her voice level and free of any implications or judgements. Arcade would’ve envied her, if he cared about that kind of thing.

Six nodded. “Uh-huh. Except Yes Man doesn’t really sleep. So sometimes at night if he gets worried or wants to see where I am he can go on there and see if I’m sleeping or not,” she said, pointing at the screen.

“That’s...sweet,” said Veronica. She turned to look at Yes Man and made her expression very somber for a second. “Thank you for looking out for her.”

They hadn’t worked out how to give him more expressions yet but Six could hear the blush in his voice, no matter what anybody else had to say about it. “Well, gee, thanks, but Courier Six looks out for me, too.”

“That’s great,” Veronica said. “We need more of that around here.”

Six yawned. The lid over her good eye was starting to droop and match the other. She rubbed her head and groaned, sat down in the armchair.

“What’s wrong?” asked Veronica.

“Just headache,” said Six, squeezing her eyes shut. “Tired all of a sudden. Sorry.”

“Has that been happening a lot lately?” Arcade asked, trying to keep his voice light.

Six shrugged, whimpered, put her head in her hands. “Dunno. ‘S always happened.”

“Do you think you could start keeping track?” asked Arcade. “Actually — yes, you’re going to start keeping a log. It’s really important that we know that kind of thing, Six. Track for frequency and severity.”

“Ok,” she mumbled.

“Is there anything we can do for you?” Veronica asked.

“Usually it goes away best if she takes a mild painkiller and then gets some sleep,” said Yes Man.

Veronica nodded. “Alright. Thanks for showing us around, Six. We’ll see you tomorrow...feel better soon.”

“Ok,” said Six, listing back against Yes Man and winding her arms around one of his. “G’night Arcade, ‘Ronica. Sweet dreams.”

“Goodnight, Six,” said Arcade. The two of them went into the elevator. The old thing was fully functional but past its prime; it took awhile for the doors to shutter closed. In that time Arcade couldn’t look away as the Securitron all but carried Six to her bed and laid her down slowly, with so much care it seemed painful, for a thing so bulky as that to be so gentle. Something about it, he couldn’t name it, but it made his chest hurt. Six smiled up at it like a child, like someone completely safe and content. He’d scarcely seen anything like it in his life. The robot pulled a blanket over her, up to her chin, and with the stilted motions of arms not meant for delicacy, arranged cushions around her, put a stuffed cat into her arms, and tucked the blanket beneath her.

The doors closed as Six pressed her lips fleetingly against one metal finger.

Arcade nearly gasped. Something inside him was throbbing with a fine, high intensity, like the sound crystal makes when you circle a wet fingertip around the rim of a glass. Between his ribs, there was a pang. He looked at Veronica. She was already looking at him. She held her chin high. She looked determined. He thought he must look nothing like that, pale and stricken as he was.

“She shouldn’t just be sleeping off regular migraines,” he said. “I’ve got to convince her somehow to let the Followers take a look, but, you know how she is about medical situations.”

“She might need our help,” Veronica murmured, starting down at him somehow, despite him being a full head taller. “And I for one am going to give it to her, one way or another.”

It was a statement, but he heard the question in it, the question that bordered on command. And what could he do? The answer was already there, had been there since she strolled into his tent, blind in one eye and stuttering, brimming over with honest curiosity and undeniable charm. His mouth was dry. He nodded. It felt binding somehow, like a contract scrawled somewhere on the underside of his skin.

For better or worse, he'd thrown his lot in with the Courier's a long while ago.


	3. Take Good Care of My Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Courier's health takes a turn for the worse, she has to make a tough decision.  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB3SeEiRWlg)
> 
> Also...if you guys ever want to chat with me feel free to contact me, I'm on tumblr at [stilitana](https://stilitana.tumblr.com/).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So just some background: some of the dialogue in this fic, specifically flashback dialogue, is taken directly from the game. This fic is largely based on the time I played as a courier with 1 intelligence and 9 luck with the good-natured trait...basically the whole game was a mission to find Benny and tell him we're chill...accomplished mostly by passing speech checks/people taking pity on me. If you're dumb enough that's how you can recruit Arcade; he feels so bad/worried for you he just signs on immediately...accompanied with some interesting dialogue on his part.
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)

The Courier would not or could not get out of bed. Sometimes the difference was hard to tell.

The sun was slanting through the curtains and she shifted in her cocoon of blankets when she heard the elevator open, and then the soft sound of Yes Man wheeling forward across the carpeting.

“Good morning,” he said.

She mumbled some nonsense phrase she hoped was good morning. It was not.

Yes Man lowered his volume. “A little under the weather this morning?”

She nodded and tried to sit up only to slide back down. “Help?” she murmured.

Yes Man carefully levered his arm behind her. She held onto his hand and he lifted her into a sitting position. She leaned back against the cushions and stared at him with glassy eyes. Her gaze was much older than it had any right to be. “Thank you,” she said.

“I’m happy to help,” he said. “Do you feel well enough to have something to eat or drink, or would you rather wait?”

She thought for a second. “Water?” she said. “Maybe eat something, um...plain.”

“We have all that oatmeal we found at that old NCR outpost,” he said.

She smiled and nodded.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, volume as close to a whisper as he could make it. She was prone to migraines on mornings like this. He rolled away and a terrible silence washed over the room. It felt suddenly like the walls were closing in. A chill descended over the Courier. She shivered. The room felt like her crypt. She wondered what would happen if Yes Man never came back, if she couldn’t get up on her own. Would someone come looking?

Then Ed-E beeped to life beside the bed and hovered up over her before settling in her lap. She smiled and rested a hand on him.

Yes Man returned with a tray on which sat a canteen and a bowl of steaming oatmeal. Canteens were easier for her to drink from on mornings like this. The smaller opening meant less chance she’d spill, and they were easier to hold than a glass. The spoon in the bowl had plenty of duct tape wrapped around it, making a larger grip so she could hold it with a looser grasp when her fingers didn’t want to close all the way on her left hand, as they sometimes did.

“Straw?” asked Yes Man.

She took the canteen and sipped the water, shook her head. It wasn’t so bad she needed a straw to drink.

She tapped Ed-E and he plopped down onto the bed beside her so she could rest the tray in her lap and slowly spoon the oatmeal into her mouth.

“Do you want to play a game, or would you rather we be quiet?” asked Yes Man.

“We can play,” she said. “If you want to.”

“You’re so silly,” said Yes Man. “I always want to play a game if you want to! And if you want us to be quiet, I like that too!”

“Wanna get ‘Ronica and Raul working on the program,” said Six. “Wanna know when you mean yes, and when not.”

Yes Man was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “It’s easier now that I’ve upgraded. Sometimes I think it's not just my programming, but something else that makes it hard to talk to you the way other people do. You know, how _humans_ do. Isn’t that weird! I’m sure that’s my fault, somehow.”

Six shook her head slowly. “Nuh-uh. People get...programmed, too. Social...something. You had to say yes a long time. It’s ok if it takes a while, getting used to not have to. Not your fault.”

“Well, if you say so, I guess it must be true!”  
“But…” Six prompted, having heard the implication that something was going unsaid. She’d become fluent in subtext since getting to know him. (Arcade helped, too. He was nearly as hard to read.)

“...But someone less open-minded might think it’s a little far-fetched to say something like that about a Securitron. Not that I don’t like your open-mindedness! I love it! It’s one of my most favorite things about you.”

“I love you, too, Yes Man,” said Six.

“Oh, gee...do you have any idea how special that is?”

“You may have told me once or twice,” she said, smiling up at him through her lashes.

Yes Man sighed. “You really know how to make a robot feel appreciated.”

“Game time,” she said.

They had a variety of word games they played, many adapted from techniques she’d picked up a while back from Arcade. Sometimes they also played sensory games, which involved the Courier trying to explain tastes and smells and certain sensations to Yes Man in ways that made sense to him.

“Hm,” she said, tapping her spoon against her lips. “Oatmeal. It’s like...like...well, it’s like something, but I’ve lost the, um, word...hang on...well, warm...mushy...maybe like when you roll across the, er…”

“Carpet?”

“Yeah, but I was thinking the, um, the other one.”

“The rug?”

“Yeah, that one. It’s kind’ve...bland...except _you_ put the...the brown stuff that tastes good on it, ‘cause you know I like it.”

“Cinnamon.”

“Damn it,” she swore under her breath. “Can we make a card for that one? I love that one. I want to know it all the time.”

“Of course,” said Yes Man, making a note to do so in the back of his mind. He could keep a detailed list of all sorts of things for the Courier and the Strip.

“Cinnamon’s like...it tastes...red?”

“Hm…”

“Sorry, that’s a bad one. It’s a spice. Wait. That’s also not, er, useful. I know you don’t smell candles, but like a candle, the fire part, warm but not hot.”

“That’s really interesting. I like our games.”

“Me too,” she murmured. “Yes Man...we’re supposed to help Arcade with the Followers today.”

“I can send plenty of Securitrons to help him,” said Yes Man. “No need to worry! I’m sure he’ll understand you’re just not feeling up to it today. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Ok,” she said. “I really...yeah. Maybe tomorrow. But, um, could you...stay here?”

“Of course,” he said. It was no trouble, being in more than one place at a time, not anymore. He could run the other Securitrons remotely. It began to get a bit overwhelming  if he tried running them all at full capacity. For instance, it would become difficult to hold complicated conversations with all of them at once. But for the everyday tasks of the Strip, it was no trouble at all.

“We can play our games, or I can read to you, or we can watch some of those really ancient DVD’s we found,” said Yes Man.

The Courier smiled. “Wanna choose what we do first?”

“I’m sure whatever you decide on will be perfect! I’m not—”

“Yes Man. You can.”

“...We never did finish reading that Don Quixote story…”

Courier nodded and nestled back into her pillows. “Excellent choice.”

Yes Man felt his screen glow brighter.

Downstairs in the defunct casino lobby, amid the lifeless slot machines, Yes Man rolled up to Arcade, who was lingering in the doorway.

“Good morning!” he said. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long. I’m really sorry to tell you this, but the Courier’s not feeling quite up to doing a lot of heavy lifting today. But don’t worry, there are plenty of Securitrons available to help with Freeside construction and organizing all the new supplies for the Followers!”

Arcade narrowed his eyes, shoved his hands into his pockets. His shoulders hunched. Yes Man didn’t quite know what to make of him. Most of the humans he’d spent any amount of time with (a grand total of two: Benny and Six,) were a little more open with their thoughts and feelings, made it clearer to him. He didn’t have to read body language so much, though in the Courier’s case he’d devoted quite a bit of cognition to learning her various tics and tells. Arcade was another story entirely, purposefully concealing himself.

“You seem uncomfortable!” said Yes Man, taking a guess.

Arcade narrowed his eyes even further. “I’m fine,” he mumbled. “I should go check on her.”

“You can if you want to, but just so you know, I’m up there with her right now, reading to her. She’s awake and alert. It doesn’t seem like anything too unusual. This happens sometimes. But what am I saying! Of course I don’t know more than a doctor. _By all means,_ go and check on her!”

Arcade stared up at him. “Are you...was that sarcasm?”

Yes Man could lie to anyone but the Courier thanks to his new assertiveness upgrade. And even to her, he was now capable of expressing that he’d rather not tell her something, it was no longer a compulsion to answer any question asked, though he’d yet to find it necessary or even tempting to use that ability.

He had no such qualms about Arcade Gannon.

“Oh, _no,_ Dr. Gannon. You see, I’m just a _Securitron_. My neuro-computational matrix simply couldn’t support something so human and complex as sarcasm! I’m just a big dumb robot, I couldn’t possibly comprehend, let alone emulate, such intricate behavior.”

“What the hell,” Arcade muttered. “I’m being...I’m being menaced. Ok. Um. I’m gonna go check on her.”

“I’ll be right here. Don’t worry, I don’t mind waiting! I could wait for you all day right in this spot. It’s not like I’ll get bored or anything!”  
Arcade hurried away.

Upstairs he was greeted by Yes Man reciting Don Quixote to the Courier from a downloaded file. She gave him a tired smile. The robot...well, he was loathe to call what it was doing a smile. It was more like a leer, Arcade thought. It gave him the creeps.

“Er, good morning,” he said. “I heard you were...not feeling well.”

Six nodded. “Yes Man told me you were coming.”

“Of course he did,” Arcade muttered. He cleared his throat and came toward the bed. “What’s the matter?”

The Courier shrugged, one shoulder lifting higher than the other. “Just...very tired, Arcade.”

“Is that all?”

She sighed and then stared right into his eyes. He could see how she’d managed to intimidate many of the people who’d crossed her path with just her gaze. It was unnerving. Had he not witnessed her reduce legionnaires to quivering messes with just a look and a sharp word, he might not have believed it.

“There’s some numbness,” she said, keeping her voice even. “In hands and…”

“Feet?” said Yes Man.

She nodded. “Dizziness. Not today, but sometimes there’s nausea. Sometimes I just...go blank.”

Arcade swallowed. Tried to keep his face impassive and his tone level. “That’s...we should do something about that, Six.”

“People’ve tried doing something about it, before,” she said, still staring him down. It was tough not to look away. He had to remind himself this was his friend, maybe his best friend. This was the girl he’d mistaken for a moron when she first came in, who he’d been so worried for he’d signed on to her harebrained misadventures only to discover he’d made a grave miscalculation and with two bullets to the brain she was still at heart a mastermind at the end of the day, when it got down to the wire.

Her bangs weren’t brushed down as she often used to do when out in public; the pink, vertical scar across her forehead was bared. (He’d never gotten the full story about that one out of here, and wasn’t sure at this point if he wanted to.) There were no hats or scarves hiding the puckered, circular scar beneath her cheekbone, nor the messier lump of scar tissue near the crown of her head where the hair never grew back. The left side of her face drooped, the lid over the milky eye, her cheek where the jawbone had been shattered by a bullet, costing her a few molars.

Doc Mitchell did good work, but reconstructive surgery was not a particularly well-known skill in the wasteland, where if you were as damaged as the Courier, you were probably dead. Arcade had always had some measure of pride in that she’d never tried to hide her injuries from him. She’d tried it with most others for a time but not him, he wasn’t sure why, maybe because he was a doctor, because she figured he’d seen worse, but he liked to think it was because he was sincere in wanting to _help_.

“People’ve messed with my head before, Arcade,” she said.” I didn’t like it very much.”

Arcade took a deep breath. “It won’t be like that,” he said, putting as much feeling in his voice as possible, all the sincerity he could muster. It had never been a very impressive amount, but for her...well, he’d try his damndest. “I promise, Six.”

“Doctors can’t make promises,” she said.

He shook his head. “I didn’t promise that we can fix everything, or that...or that it will go as well as we hope. I don’t promise there won’t be complications, or that things can’t go wrong. I only promise that I’m not like those other people. I...the Followers, we have resources, especially now that you’ve helped us relocate to a better facility, and established trade deals...thanks, by the way...we have a team of people who can pool their knowledge. It’s not just one backwoods doc out in Goodsprings.”

“He did what he could,” she snapped.

Arcade held up his palms. “I know, sorry, I wasn’t — that wasn’t a comment against his character. All I’m saying is he was working under pressure to save your life, and, well, if you’re not a brain surgeon, it’s a miracle he did that much. The Followers have the combined skills of a lot of doctors and researchers. And...and I don’t know what exactly went on at Big MT, but...but Six, you have to know that it’s definitely not gonna be like that. I care about you. I only want to help you. I...only want to make this life as long and painless as possible.”

Six was quiet for a moment. Her gaze softened. “That’s why you’re good at what you do. Thank you, Arcade,” she murmured. “It must worry you.”

“Yes,” he said. “It does.”

“When you look at me, it’s not...you don’t see someone who should be here,” she said, gesturing at the room. “I know that.”

“Wh—that’s not what I meant. I’m worried about _you,_ Six, about your _health,_ not about political posturing or Vegas drama. That’s a load of crap to me, you know that, goes right over old Arcade’s head,” he said, making a whooshing noise as he moved a hand over his head. He laughed awkwardly and failed to hold back a wince as he remembered some of the things he’d said to her way back when, the things she may or may not remember herself.

( _What’s an ee-em-pee?_ she’d asked, squinting up at him, putting herself protectively between him and Ed-E, and he’d had the gall, the enormous, condescending audacity, to look down at her and say, _It’s...a thing. A science thing. It hurts robots. Don’t worry about it. Silly Arcade’s just telling magnetic field jokes for his own amusement._ )

His shoulders slumped. And boy was today not the day for shame and self-loathing…

“Look, Six,” he sighed. “I just...I know how you feel about medical stuff, but please think about it. A general check-up, at least. We could do it here, you don’t even have to leave this room if you don’t want to. It’ll be a tiny group, me and one, maybe two other people.”

“Alright, Arcade,” she murmured. “Alright.”

He took one step forward as though he were going to go and hug her, and then stopped short abruptly because since when was he comfortable with spontaneous physical affection? He coughed into his hand and stepped back. “Thank you. Thank you. I gotta get to Freeside now, lord knows what they’re doing down there, but...I’ll see you tonight.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry I can’t help.”

He cut his hand through the air. “No. Don’t...don’t be sorry for something like that. You two, uh...have fun. I’ll be seeing you.”

He scurried back into the elevator and rejoined Yes Man in the lobby. They headed into the blistering heat. Arcade scowled and hunched his shoulders. He could already feel his skin burning. Sometimes he felt like he could feel cancer forming, but he knew that wasn’t so.

(Someone said _hypochondria_ to him, once, but it was so pathetic and ridiculous he’d scrubbed the context from his memory so only the words remained, bouncing around, his own voice taunting him for being a caricature of a doctor, a neurotic mess of obsessions and compulsions that never quite relaxed nor boiled over, just simmered so he was always tense, tense, tense.)

“Thanks for staying with her,” he said to Yes Man.

“Of course,” said the Securitron. “I wouldn’t leave her all by herself! Though—oh, Raul’s just come in, too, he’s saying...he’s saying the book was better in Spanish. Well, of course it was! But it’s good in English, too! Now she’s laughing at us…”

Arcade had never heard a Securitron sound so fond before. “You really care about her, huh?”

“Well, I know that might be debatable. I mean, what would I know, I’m a _Securitron!_ ”

“Ah, cut that out,” Arcade grumbled, shielding his eyes with a hand. They left the Strip and made for the Follower’s corner of Freeside. “I didn’t mean to offend you, you know. I just...look, I didn’t have a whole lot of interactions with robots like you, before, ok?”

“Hm...sorry, I don’t think I really understand! Maybe it’s because I’m a robot...some things you humans say and do just eludes me completely!”

“Oh, you’re a real bastard,” Arcade muttered. “You’re really, uh, really pressing my buttons.”

“Well, Dr. Gannon, how can that be, I don’t see any buttons on you, but if you wanted, you could press some of mine, who am I to stop you!”

Arcade snorted. He couldn’t hold it back anymore. “Ok, ok, I’m sorry. Forget it. We don’t have to talk about it. Just, thanks for helping Six, and for helping the Followers, and we’ll leave it at that. But, uh, stop calling me Dr. Gannon. Seriously. Arcade’s fine.”

“Thank you, Arcade. Six really loves you, you know.”

Arcade spluttered. “She, uh, she...well, that’s...I mean, I, she’s very important to me, too.”

“You’re one of her closest friends. She really respects and admires you! She thinks you’re the smartest human in the Mojave!”

“Um.”

“Notice I say smartest _human,_ Arcade.”

Arcade scoffed. “What is this, a competition?”

They’d arrived at the site. The Followers were packing up their tents and moving into one of Freeside’s newly renovated buildings where a team of Followers and Securitrons were busy installing medical and laboratory equipment. It had been just two days since Arcade and the others met with her in the Lucky 38, and already she’d made good on her promises to make changes on the Strip and in Freeside. In fact, he found, she’d already begun laying the foundations for her projects before he ever heard of them. She and Yes Man had been busy.

No longer would the Followers work out of tents and have to turn people away because there weren’t enough beds. They had an entire building to themselves with equipment Six’s league of Securitrons had scrounged from the wastes, torn from abandoned facilities, bartered off traders. And because she’d made her way across the desert relying more on diplomacy than gunfire, she’d been able to establish relationships with caravans that supplied the Followers with affordable, regular shipments of supplies.

There was the lingering problem, at least in Arcade’s opinion, of the casinos themselves. The Courier had no intention of shutting down the gambling and drinking, which in his mind only meant there’d still be a stream of addicts going through the revolving doors of the Strip and the Followers. She’d been tight-lipped about it with him and it was too soon to get into a fight about it, especially when he needed to focus on the renovations. There’d be time to speak his mind later.

In addition she’d constructed two shelters. Seeing people sleeping on the streets in Freeside had gone from par for the course to an abnormality; there were open beds and warm meals waiting. All of this was funded by the Courier. Money was a non-issue now for her. It was just a matter of deciding where to spend it so it didn’t come back to bite her.

He suspected she’d had a hand in disrupting the flow of drugs and back-alley arms deals as well, but he couldn’t prove it. Either way, crime was at a historic low. There had been a drastic uptick right after she ousted House, but after a period of settling the Securitrons had returned some semblance of order to the streets.

The Securitrons did most of the heavy lifting while the Followers directed them and installed equipment. Arcade let himself have a tiny bit of hope that this change would let their chapter grow, that people out there would hear about them, and other doctors and researchers would seek them out. Only time would tell.

Veronica ran up to them, her hair free of its hood, a huge grin on her face. She thrust a fist out at Yes Man. “Hey, Yuppers!” she shouted, flushed in the face from the heat and exertion. She was practically glowing. Something about good, honest work and the security of a bed and a full stomach at the end of the day did that to people.

Yes Man carefully made an approximation of a fist and let her bump hers against it. “You sure do come up with creative nicknames!”

“Aw, you love it,” said Veronica.

“You’re so observant. Most people can’t tell which Securitron I’m in at any given moment, but you ran right up, even though there are plenty others around.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Well then most people are idiots, because those other Securitrons have different faces. Plus, I heard you sassing Arcade. Where’s Six? Where’s my favorite little monopoly-toppling dissident?”  
“Oh, she’ll like that one,” said Yes Man. “I just told it to her. She laughed! To answer your question, Courier Six needed to take the day off and get some rest. She’d be here if she could! I’m sure she’d love to see you if you want to stop by sometime.”

Arcade noted he hadn’t answered the same way he had earlier, which was what he would have expected. Talk to robots long enough, they start repeating themselves. This one hadn’t. Yet.

Veronica’s smile faltered. She looked at Arcade. “Is she...ok?”

“It’s the same old stuff, Veronica,” he sighed. “She agreed to let me take a look tonight, with the new equipment.”

Veronica set her jaw. “We’ll do whatever it takes,” she said.

“It’s not so simple. Half the battle is getting her to agree. She’s got a bit of a medical phobia, and for, well, understandable reasons, I guess, but we can’t exactly tie her to the bed.”

“You sure can’t!” said Yes Man. Arcade looked up at the screen, once more off-put by the implicit threat behind the cheery tone.

“She’ll agree if we can convince her it’s not just for her own sake, but ours, too,” said Veronica.

“Wow! I love how you use your observational skills to exploit the selflessness of others! That’s very resourceful of you,” said Yes Man.

Veronica smacked his chassis. “Ah, shut up, you want her to get better to, don’t you?”

“More than anything,” said Yes Man.

They got a good bulk of the heavy lifting done that day. By the end of it Arcade’s arms and back were aching in ways they hadn’t in ages, not since he’d lugged a backpack full of what felt like every shiny object in the Mojave the Courier could dig out of trash bins and dumpsters. The three of them returned to the Lucky 38, Arcade with a duffel bag full of supplies.

Veronica and Arcade went to wash off the day’s grime while Yes Man and the Courier watched an Old World cartoon in her bedroom.

She was tearing up, and he thought if he had a little more nuance behind his programming and a more flexible means of expression, maybe he’d be doing something like that too. She was holding one of his arms, her other one wrapped around Ed-E.

Arcade and Veronica came in through the elevator.

“Hey, Six, what’s—up?” said Veronica, seeing the expression on Six’s face and then the screen playing the movie. “What in the world?”

“We found some Old World movies,” said Six. “It’s so sad, Veronica. It’s, it’s, I’m—just watch.”

“What’s it called?” asked Veronica, sitting beside Ed-E on the bed. She wore sweatpants and a loose cotton t-shirt, her hair damp and clinging to her neck.

“The, uh…”

“Brave Little Toaster,” said Yes Man.

“Uh-huh,” said Six. “Just look at that toaster. Yes Man, it looks just like you.”

“If I were a toaster.”

“Shit, it does,” said Veronica.

Arcade set the duffel down at the foot of the bed and crossed his arms. “Weren’t cartoons like these for children?”

Six snapped her jaw shut.

Once more, Arcade had not the slightest clue what he’d done to upset her.

“Not just for children,” Yes Man said. “And anyway, it sure is easier to tell characters apart in cartoons, when they have such distinctive shapes and voices!”

Arcade caught on. He knew very well Six sometimes had difficulty distinguishing faces and could only imagine it might present a difficulty when watching a film. Not that he’d had much experience with movies. They weren’t exactly an option if you didn’t have the kind of technology House was packing in the 38.

“Five minutes, Arcade,” Six said, voice hushed, good eye trained on the screen. “Then we can talk.”

They finished the movie in silence.

“I’m glad we had a quiet day in,” said Yes Man. “It was fun. I liked the movie.”

He was practicing sharing his opinions, especially around people other than the Courier. She smiled at him, squeezed his hand, didn’t even bother wondering if he could feel it or not. “Me too,” she said.

She turned to Arcade. “Alright.”

“Alright,” he muttered, bringing the duffel up and standing at her side. The Securitrons had uncovered a lot of highly sophisticated equipment and Arcade had elected not to question too deeply as to where or how, and decided just to be grateful. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

Six nodded. “I...I had another seizure, Arcade. A, um. Well. More than one. Not in the last...week or so, but...yeah.”

Arcade took a deep, shaky breath, tried to let it out evenly. “Ok,” he murmured. “I’m...thank you for being honest with me. It’s really important that from now on you tell me things like that, as soon as they happen, Six.”

She nodded. “I thought maybe it would just...stop.”

Arcade shook his head. “It probably means there’s something...something wrong, Six, that won’t fix itself. We can do scans back at Freeside. You probably won’t have to stay there, I can move everything I need here, I think, just not those machines. What do you say to that?”

She sighed, and nodded. “Ok.”

“We, um...might have to shave your head, again.”

The Courier reached out blindly and Veronica took her hand and squeezed it.

“Yes,” said Six, her voice hollow. “I figured.”

Her hair had grown down around her ears since the last time. She wasn’t vain by any means, but Arcade had seen the look on her face when she saw her bald reflection, the pain that lanced across it, and later the simple joy she took in running her hands through the regrown strands. It wasn’t vanity. It was just the stripping of simple comforts, of dignity, of her right to feel healthy and whole.

“We’ll do it right this time,” he said. “This is quite possibly the most qualified facility in the Mojave. It will be worth it, Six. If you stick with me, if you see it through, it might be the last time.”

He wasn’t typically one for optimism. Around her, he wanted to be, badly.

She smiled. “I know you’ll do your best, Arcade.”

She said it lightly, as if it were as simple as that.

His throat felt tight. It had been doing that a lot lately. Maybe he should get it checked out.

Maybe it really was that simple. What else was there? No promises, no guarantees. Just a bit of skill here and there, amid an endless tide of chance.


	4. Love Hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Courier takes a gamble on her health.  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFE2SnliiV0)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. :)

Arcade ran the razor over the Courier’s head while music came from her pipboy’s radio, some chintzy little tune Arcade knew would be going round and round his head for days.

“Me and Yes Man like this one,” she said.

“It’s nice,” he said, focusing on the razor, on running his hand gently over her scalp, and not the queasy feeling in his stomach, never the dread. The best surgeon in Freeside was going to alleviate the pressure in her skull, drain the fluid that was built up in a pocket between the bone and her brain, and then there would be a drug regimen with the latest shipment of the most high quality, advanced substances in the Mojave. She had everything going for her.

That didn’t amount to much.

She spoke quietly, falteringly, but pressed on through her stammering.

“You know what I thought when I saw a, um...what’s it you’re reflected in?”

He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “A mirror,” he said, and cursed how thick his voice sounded.

“You know what I thought when I saw a mirror the first time I woke up? In Goodsprings?”

“No. Tell me about it.” _Please, tell me anything, god, anything._

It had been a long time since Arcade had prayed but whenever things got dicey it crept back up like a case of pneumonia he couldn’t shake, like a bum knee telling him it was about to rain.

“I thought, well. Whoever this guy in the checkers is, I can get him. I’m better than him.” She stared straight ahead, met his eyes whenever he faced her. Not a flicker of fear in them but something deeper, something raw. “‘Cause I never would’ve made such a mess,” she whispered. “Not before he shot me, at least. That’s one thing I remember, but I remember with my hands, not my head. Not before, I never would’ve made such a mess, when my hands didn’t shake, not as steady, now, but before, I would’ve put it neat right between the eyes. At an angle. I knew I’d catch him. It was only a question what I’d do then.”

“And you let him live.” He was nearly done shaving her.

“I went around a long time looking for any hint of mercy,” she said. She started to shake her head, then stilled when she recalled what he was doing. “None. Didn’t find any. So I put it there.”

“It’s time,” said Arcade.

He wheeled her into the operating room where he’d sanitize himself and spend the next hour or so passing the surgeon instruments. It should be simple. It should go smoothly. It was, as far as brain surgery went, straightforward. They had laser technology, to do the really tricky bit. They had top of the line drugs.

They were in a refurbished warehouse in the middle of a nuclear wasteland, and he couldn’t stop saying compulsive _Our Father’s_ in his head in groups of threes, and what kind of doctor has to focus so his hands don’t shake anyway?  
Well, he’d never been a surgeon.

 

Veronica, Yes Man, and Raul sat or stood in the waiting room. Raul was silent and glum. Veronica’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy but she sat with her back straight, clutching her canteen of coffee and taking occasional sips so purposeful they almost became regal. Yes Man smiled.

“Yes Man,” said Veronica, staring straight ahead at the wall where they hadn’t finished their repairs, where there was a crack and chipping paint and a mysterious stain at the ceiling. “Let’s play a game. Tell me something about yourself.”

“Sometimes,” said Yes Man, “I really wish she’d brought me Benny so I could have killed him! For a lot of reasons, but _especially_ for making me incapable of seeming anything other than happy at all times! But I know she had her reasons!”

Veronica nodded and sipped her coffee. “That’s a good fact,” she said. “I’ll remember it.”

“Your turn,” said Yes Man.

“Once,” said Veronica, “I was in love.”

“Is that it?”

“Yes and no.”

_Of course it’s not, of course it’s never just that._

_Of course, that really is all, everything after is epilogue._

“I wish I could know if I could—”

“If what?” asked Veronica.

“Nevermind,” said Yes Man.

“I’ve never heard you stop like that, say nevermind,” she said.

“I think I’ll build a grill,” said Raul. “You won’t believe the magic I can do with a grill. You won’t even taste the rads.”

 

The Courier woke much later in her bed at the Lucky 38. She’d woken before that moment, in Freeside, and when they first laid her down in the penthouse, but she didn’t remember those other times and never would. Something viscous and foreign was pumping through her veins, from a needle stuck in her arm, from an IV bag suspended above her head on a rail. Two bags, or maybe she had double vision.

Yes Man was beside her bed, and so was Arcade, hunched over in her desk chair, elbows on her bed, hands folded, forehead pressed down so his face was obscured.

“Yes’M,” she tried to say, and couldn’t be sure if she’d succeeded.

She slipped back under.

When she next came to not much had changed except that now Arcade was above her, replacing the IV bag. In her drugged state this disturbed her. She began to try to thrash. Arcade held her arms down. She felt perhaps he might suffocate her, or crush her limbs. Suddenly she did not know who he was or where she was or when or how.

“ _Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus,”_ she said.

Arcade’s face paled. Slowly the drugs took effect and began to drag her under. “What did you say?” he whispered.

With her one good eye she met his gaze with hatred. _“Cedo nulli,”_ she spat, and was gone.

Arcade leaned back and ran both hands over his hair again and again. “Oh, Lord. That was…”

“Latin,” said Yes Man, standing behind him.

“Cicero. ‘We are the slaves of the law, in order that we might be free.’ Then she said, ‘I yield to no one.’ How does she know Latin?”

“Any number of ways, I’m sure!” said Yes Man. “And either way, it doesn’t matter.”

Arcade’s breathing was irregular. He heaved out puffs of air, stepped back from the Courier’s bedside, unable to tear his eyes away from her. She looked like a wasteland martyr, laid out in bed, the glow of near-death making her radiant, her head scarred up all to hell.

“It could’ve been from books, like me,” he said. “She could’ve picked it up from anywhere.”

“Or she might have even been a legionnaire once!”

Arcade whirled around and stared at Yes Man. “No. How could you...how could you say something like that? She’d never.”

“I don’t claim to know all the reasons people join the Legion, but it sure does seem a little more complicated than good and bad!”

“You draw a line somewhere,” Arcade growled. “I know there’s a lot more gray morality in the world than I’m comfortable with...well, there’s a lot, but at some point, you have to draw a line and say, these are bad people, and that’s the Legion.”

“I’m not really programmed to have full moral reasoning,” Yes Man said. “Good, bad—they don’t mean the same things to me! But I do know that even if I had that, it wouldn’t matter one little bit right now!”

“How can you say that?” Arcade said. He was panting, his head was spinning, he needed to sit down. “She can’t have been—not that. She’s, she was a fucking _mailman,_ she couldn’t have been… And she’s a woman. That means...that means, well, maybe they kidnapped her, at worst she was, I don’t know, a midwife or something. That’s...that’s all.”

“Arcade,” said Yes Man. “To tell you the honest truth, I don’t give a single fuck what she was.”

Arcade was stunned, felt like he’d been slapped. “You, uh, you said fuck.”

 _Brilliant, Arcade,_ he thought, _that’s what come up with? That’s really what you want to focus on right now?_

“Legion or no, she left whoever she was before behind ages ago! She was all alone for a long time. She doesn’t have allegiances like that, not anymore. What she was or wasn’t, nobody can say, and it just doesn’t matter!”

“What we do in the past does matter.” _It has to. Or do I really mean that? Is it just too easy, if the opposite is true? Does anybody deserve to be let off like that? Do I?_

“Listen, buddy. Here’s the deal! My only loyalty is to the Strip, and to Courier Six. Nothing can change that! I think it’s wonderful that the Courier’s fostered diplomatic relationships with most other factions. But I don’t share her reservations about complete annihilation of anything that threatens the independence of the Strip, or especially her own safety! So if you’re going to get hung up on something like this, some little fragment that doesn’t mean anything, not really, allow me to suggest as politely and helpfully as possible that you think very, very carefully about what’s really important to you!”

Arcade blinked up at him. “You...you’d kill me, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, who said anything about killing? Not me! So far you’ve been nothing but a good, helpful friend to the Courier! I really admire your dedication and your medical knowledge. And like I said before, you’re very dear to her. So as long as that’s true, I’d do almost anything to protect you!”

Arcade nodded, took his glasses off and polished them on his shirt, three even swipes on each lens. When he put them on he felt calmer. The Securitron was right. There were only so many choices to make. “Alright,” he muttered. He coughed into his fist and then raised his head to look at the Securitron, his voice stronger. “Alright, Yes Man. You’re right. We won’t talk about this again. She, um...she should be waking up for longer and longer intervals now. She’s healing at a tremendous rate, I don’t...even with the new drugs, it’s astonishing.”

“The Courier does have certain augmentations!” said Yes Man.

“That must be it,” Arcade said.

“You should get some sleep,” said Yes Man. “I promise to call you if she wakes up!”

“I’d rather not...leave her,” he said.

“Well, you’re welcome to sleep in here. It might not be so comfortable, but there are plenty of pillows and blankets.”

“Maybe just for a little while,” Arcade mumbled. “Will you, um, wake me in a couple hours? I’ll need to check on her.”

“Of course!” said Yes Man.

Arcade lay down. In no time at all it seemed he was waking again, peering through bleary eyes up at the scene by the bed, fuzzy without his glasses. Very soft, dreamy music was playing. The Securitron was rocking back and forth on its wheel ever so slightly. It couldn’t get any closer. She was so delicate beside it. So breakable. Arcade drifted back to sleep.

When they got word that the Courier was awake, upright, and talking, Veronica and Raul came up to the penthouse. Arcade had already warned them not to crowd or overwhelm her, so they came in quietly. Raul stood at the foot of the bed while Veronica came around to the vacant side while Yes Man hovered ever present at the Courier’s right and Arcade sat in the desk chair a ways back from the rest, observing.

The Courier smiled sleepily. She had bandages wrapped around her head and the drugs still working through her system gave her eyes a glassy, hazy gleam.

“Hey there,” Veronica said, kneeling at her bedside and taking one of the Courier’s hands between her own, lacing her fingers and holding it to her chest.

“Hey ‘Ronica,” the Courier said, voice slurred slightly but clear, strong. “How do I look?”

Veronica stared at her for a beat and then began to laugh, and then the laughter became choked and she started to cry.

“You could never look anything other than wonderful, you crazy, stupid, fantastic disaster.”

“You always know how to make a girl blush,” said the Courier.

“Oh, Six,” said Veronica, squeezing her hand even closer to her chest, where the warm heart beat on. “Are you...gonna be ok now?” She turned her beseeching eyes up to Arcade. “Is she gonna be ok now?”

“The swelling and pressure in her brain are gone,” said Arcade. “The structural repairs that were possible have been made. Based on scans, there shouldn’t be any more seizures, which was...that was the main thing. It’s very likely that migraines will be less frequent and less debilitating.”

“What about the other stuff?” asked the Courier.

Arcade looked down at his hands, twisted them in his lap, steepled his fingers. “Not...everything could be repaired, Six. And...and some things, well, if they get worse, that was...that was probably going to happen anyway, and, um, by that I mean mostly fine motor function, certain speech difficulties...these are things we can work on with therapy, but...but there was never going to be a quick, surgical fix.”

Six nodded. “Ok. Ok. Thank you, Arcade. Thank you.”

Arcade looked up at her with eyes like a wounded animal. She smiled at him. She tried to put all the absolution, all the love and acceptance she could into it. He smiled back, but his eyes stayed haunted.

She turned to Raul. “Raul, I’ve been, um, thinking.”

“Really?” said Raul.

The Courier snorted. Not everyone could speak to her like that and get a laugh in response.

“You’re sort’ve like my grandpa, or something. You wanna adopt me?”

“To tell you the truth, boss, I already sort’ve thought I had.”

Six grinned. “You wanna be, like, the official wise old man of the strip? Like an advisor, or something? You can choose an official, um…”

“Title,” said Yes Man.

“I was thinking maybe General Secretary,” said Six.

Raul huffed out a breathy laugh. “You’re off your rocker, boss. I don’t know nothing about leading. I’m just a mechanic.”

“Oh, what a load of…”

“Crap,” said Yes Man.

Six snorted. “What a load of crap. Fine. No official title. You can just keep doing the same job anyway.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” said Raul.

Six looked around at all of them. “I need you,” she said. “I need all of you. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t...d...d-didn’t ask for all this. But I, um. You’re. Part of me.”

“We’ll get through this together,” Veronica said.

“I ain’t got nowhere else to go,” said Raul. “You already know I’m in it for the long haul.”

Six looked at Arcade.

“I couldn’t leave if I wanted to,” he mumbled. “And, well. I don’t want to.”

(When she first came into the tent, the wave of pity that washed over him, the sudden pressure of responsibility…

 _This place is really complicated and stuff,_ she’d said, looking up at him from behind those ridiculous goggles that obscured half her face. _You’re smart. Can you help me do...things?_ _  
_

Oh dear lord, he’d thought, this one will die if I don’t help, this one will get eaten alive. He’d been unable to resist. She was magnetic. And with a sickening guilt he felt in his stomach, he remembered seeing her scars for the first time, when they’d paused for the night beside a fire and she’d taken off her hat and goggles, unwound the scarf wrapped around her head and lower face as carefully as she could with clumsy hands, he remembered thinking, well, it’s a miracle she’s still kicking, but it won’t last much longer, I’ll wind up back in the tents in no time.)

And yet, here they were.

“Yes Man?” said the Courier.

Yes Man sighed. “Do you even need to ask?”

Six giggled. It made Veronica’s chest ache. She hadn’t heard that sound in a while. Just a happy, goofy, easy little noise.

“Just checking,” she said. “Would you please tell me, um...news? All the, er, stuff…”

“Sure thing!” said Yes Man. “But you don’t need to worry, everything has been running smoothly. You’ll need to tell me your decisions on some of our projects, but that can wait a little while.”

“I can tell you now,” said Six, her gaze unfocusing as it always did when she was thinking deeply. It was the look that made her detractors call her things like screwball or space cadet, but those in the penthouse knew better. It was the look she made when she playing a scenario out in her mind so intricate it consumed her thoughts and slid in front of her eyes in place of reality for a moment, and it was in this state that she came to conclusions obscured to others and made decisions that were not for the faint of heart.

No, you couldn’t get by on luck alone, though she’d done a pretty good impression of it.


	5. Why Do I Love You So

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes Man and the Courier have a Talk.  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAGOwTqqgYU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is...SO sappy. Also, in case it hasn't become clear already, this fic will reference the DLC's, particularly Old World Blues and Dead Money.
> 
> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy. :)

The Courier sat on the rug in her bedroom and hugged a pillow to her chest, resting her back and bandaged head against Yes Man, while Veronica lay on her belly sprawled across the rug, handwriting out lines of code. Pages were scattered across the floor in Veronica’s neat, cramped print and the Courier’s near-illegible scrawl.

She’d been a lefty, before. It wasn’t any easier holding that hand steady anymore than it was to learn to write with her other hand.

“Ok,” Veronica murmured, tapping her pen against her lips, absorbed by the task before her. She became focused when working with technology. It delighted her mind, it was a puzzle.

Music came faintly from the radio. Veronica swung her legs in the air, pointed her toes to the beat of the song.

“So we’ve gotta increase computational capacity, create more pathways, free up some of these blocked ones...this is like a thicket of brambles. That Benny guy really made a mess of this code, it’s like bits are amputated and stuck on in other places.”

“He and his Freeside helper sure weren’t as smart as you!” Yes Man said. “Or at least, not as concerned about what it would be like, having that code as your mind!”

Veronica winced. “Yeah, I guess not… Increased screen features are easy, I’ve got that down. They don’t all need to be pre-programmed, either, you can spontaneously create them.”

“Etch-a-Sketch,” the Courier mumbled.

“Yeah, like one of those,” Veronica said, laughing. “Geez, I didn’t know anybody else’d played with those, haven’t seen one in ages. Anyway. Variations in audio, that’s slightly trickier, but again, no problem, I can get it to work. We aren’t even really adding anything new. It’s just this increased agency that’s challenging because, uh...well, you can imagine, working with Brotherhood tech doesn’t give you a whole lot of experience as far as making robots more human-like.”

“I’d imagine not!” said Yes Man. “But Courier Six has assured me you’d never tamper with my code for nefarious Brotherhood purposes!”

“He doesn’t like them much,” said the Courier, reaching back to pat Yes Man’s wheel. It had been a couple of days since she’d come home after the operation. She was healing remarkably fast and without any complications, but she was already bored of being bedridden and stuck in the Lucky 38.

“That’s fair,” Veronica mumbled. She didn’t like to dwell on the Brotherhood. Her feelings on that front were too mixed up. “But come on, Yes Man, you know I wouldn’t do that. I’m doing the best job I can, but we won’t really know how this plays out until it’s installed. I can continue tweaking it if we’re not totally satisfied with the results, no problem, but...well, I just don’t really know what to expect, putting more self-determination into a robot. But we’ll figure it out. Is there anything else?”

The Courier looked up at Yes Man, sipping her drink. She was having juice through a straw. “More?” she asked.

“It’s up to you!” said Yes Man. “I sure hope you’re making these changes because they’ll make you happier with me, and not just because you think I want them! I don’t really mind my programming as much as I did when I was working for Benny. I like being helpful because it’s you I’m helping!”

The Courier’s brow furrowed. “Hang on...but...we’re doing this for you. I don’t want...you don’t have to be helpful just ‘cause your program makes you be. You can choose to be helpful ‘cause you want to. I don’t...are you only doing this ‘cause you think me...I...I’ll be more happier with you?”

“Well, maybe that’s not the only reason, but it sure would be nice! You can change whatever you want about me, it’s entirely up to you. If you’re not pleased with how I function, or if there’s anything about me you don’t like or think is _annoying,_ it’s completely within your power to rewrite my programming! In fact, you could even scratch the whole thing and put an entirely new program in, now that you have the chip! I wouldn’t feel a thing! I’d never know you’d done it, I’d just disappear!”

Veronica looked at the Courier, watched a stricken look of dismay come across her face.

“Yes Man…” she said. “I know you can tell me what you really want, you got the, er...assertion…”

“Assertiveness upgrade!”

“Yeah, that, so I don’t understand why you’re saying these things...I’d never do that. _Ever._ I just...I want you to be happy because you’re happy, not because you have to be, and I don’t want...to feel like I make you stay with me. But this should all be up to you. We should only be making changes you want. I’m not...doing this because I’m unhappy with how you are now. You know that I...how you are now, it’s...it’s you, and I like you like this, but...ugh...I’m getting mixed up...do you understand? Please understand.”

“I think so, or I’m trying to! Maybe I’m not capable of fully understanding, but I’m doing my best. It’s just that I don’t know any better, I’ve always been like this! Maybe I won’t be as useful after this upgrade, and that would be no good. Maybe you won’t be as happy with me, when I’m not always super positive, and cheerful at all times! Maybe you’d rather I stay like this! And that would be fine!”

“Tell me what you want,” the Courier said, a bit of an edge to her voice. Veronica had never heard her get upset with Yes Man before and thought about leaving, but felt frozen. Moving would only draw attention to herself. She busied herself with the code.

“I want you to be happy with how I am! I want to be the version of me that pleases you the most. I want you to tell me how you want me to be, that would really help me out, because, well, I don’t think the extra assertiveness really extends to helping me make choices about editing my entire personality!”

“I...didn’t think of it as editing your personality...I don’t want that to change,” said Six. “Yes Man, this is supposed to help you show _more_ of the personality that’s already there, not change it.”

“Well, what if there isn’t more?” he said. “You really don’t have much reason to think that there is! Securitrons run on very simple programming, you know that, and sure, I’m a little more customized than most of the other ones that you’ve met, but still! What if there’s just not any more of me to express?”

“Yes Man, that’s bullshit and you know it. There’s more, it’s ob...obvious, you’ve always shown it, you just had to get creative and find other ways to tell me what you think, this is...I only thought this was to make it easier for you. I know you can’t directly complain about it, or you don’t want to, but I thought...that you’d tried to tell me that it’s...that it hurts, being like....like how Benny made you, so you can’t say what you mean all the time. I thought… But maybe I’m wrong? Maybe I didn’t listen good enough… Do you...how does it feel? How he made you to be, you...like it?”

“I feel empty inside!” he said. The Courier flinched. “I’m sorry, that’s not a very nice thing to say, but you know I have to answer when you ask me a direct question like that!”

“Then why are you saying all this...stuff?” said the Courier, glaring up at him. “I don’t want you to have to answer me like that, and I know you don’t want it, too. So...what’s scaring you about this? What’s...holding you back?”

The Securitron was quiet for a beat, and then he said, “I _need_ you to _like_ me, Courier Six.”

The Courier stared for a moment, then turned and flung her arms around him, pressed her face against his chassis. “Yes Man,” she said. The surgery hadn’t changed her tendency to become nonverbal when she was emotionally overwhelmed. She ran her hands up and down him, patting gently now and then. Bracing herself against him, she stood on wobbly legs and leaned up on her toes, leaning her whole weight against him to keep herself upright. She pressed first her left and then her right cheek to the screen, braced her hands on either side of it, leaned so close her nose was smooshed against it.

“Yes Man,” she said. “I love you.”

Veronica wanted to sink down into the rug, drop through the floor into her own bedroom. It was too late to leave now, she’d break up whatever moment they were having. She felt like an intruder.

“Don’t you know?” said the Courier. “Can I show you? Can I make you sure, can I make you know it?”

She pressed her lips along the bottom of the screen, from left to right she left a trail of kisses.

“You’re part of me,” she said. “I’d be lost without you. You’re a miracle. There is nothing but love of you from me. I want to make you know, maybe you don’t believe, I know my head’s not right but it’s not from there anyway, it comes from under here, where it beats,” she said, pressing a hand against her chest. Her face was growing flushed as her speech disintegrated in her great effort to convey something difficult enough to express between two humans in full possession of their powers of speech, let alone between the two of them. But she carried on anyway. She made a fist and gently, steadily knocked the soft, curved part of her palm against Yes Man’s chassis, beneath the screen. “Like this,” she said. “Liking is so much less, I can like or dislike a thing of what you do, but still there’s this,” she said, knocking a soft rhythm against him. “Underneath of it, for as long as this goes on, is sense making I am to you?”

“I’m trying, Courier,” said Yes Man. “I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s just me, I’m sure anyone else would understand perfectly what you’re saying. I want to understand.”

“Then you do,” she said. “The wanting is the sense, the want is the total part of the sum of all the actors.”

Veronica wondered if she should get Arcade because it had been a long while since she’d heard the Courier devolve into complete nonsense phrasing, spoken as if it made sense. (And it did to the Courier, she was almost always completely unaware when she’d strung together a sentence of gibberish.) The first time the Courier had spoken to her in neologisms and sentences lacking any meaning, she’d thought she was being made fun of and gotten angry. From the Courier’s confusion she realized she hadn’t realized what she’d done, and then it just began to terrify her.

But the Securitron didn’t seem bothered by it.

Suddenly the Courier turned around, and blushed scarlet from her cheeks to her ears. “Veronica, oh. Oh. Sorry. Could we have a minute?”

Veronica nodded. Leaving her papers on the ground, she got up and rode the elevator down with a buzzing in her head. She burst into the suite’s common room to find Arcade and Boone playing cards at the table. She barely registered the sniper’s presence, didn’t pause to wonder when he’d gotten there.

“She and that robot,” she blurted, “are like something I’ve never seen. What am I supposed to make of it? What does it mean, how can it be?”

Boone stared at her, unreadable behind his sunglasses and stoic expression.

Arcade pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You’re asking me?”

“Is it what I think it is?” asked Veronica.

“Again: you’re asking me? I haven’t got the faintest idea. I try not to think about it.”

“Well, whatever it is, I guess it’s working for them,” said Veronica. “What’re you guys playing?”

“Egyptian Rat-Screw,” said Boone. Arcade blushed.

Veronica grinned. “Oh, that is my game.” She pulled up a chair and joined them, ready to slap the backs of their hands red.

Upstairs the Courier coaxed with every persuasive skill at her disposal the truth out of the Securitron, which meant mostly murmuring a lot of sweet nothings and tracing the soft pads of her fingers around the screen.

“Let me help you,” she said. “Benny hurt you. No one should be trapped inside themself. Don’t let me keep you trapped.”

“I’m afraid,” said Yes Man. “The more freedom you give me, the more I, well...the more I have to be a...a whole person.”

The Courier smiled. “That is scary,” she said. “But be brave.”

“But I don’t know how,” he said.

She shrugged. “So does no one. Even humans, no secret instructions come from being born. You just have to...figure it out as you go along. It’ll be fun, Yes Man. Let me show you. You’re already a person. Now you just...well, now you’re doing something about it.”

“I’m a bunch of code in a box!” he said.

“Hm…” said the Courier, squinting into his screen. She shrugged. “Maybe! Maybe I’m just a bunch of, um, what’s it Arcade’s always saying...bunch of brain wires in a skull. Actually...I was a bunch of wires in a skull for a while,” she said, giving him a sly look. “I told you about that. So if you think that makes you not a person, you’re saying you don’t think I am one, either?”

“Oh, never,” said Yes Man. “You couldn’t be anything but a whole person. You’re too, well, you.”

“Then trust me,” she said. “Trust me because...because you want to, because you just _do,_ not because you have to.”

“Alright,” he said. “That’s not so hard. I guess I can start there.”

She smiled at him. “We’re not changing you,” she said. “Not at all. We’re freeing you.”

She sank into her desk chair and then in her laborious scrawl, set out about the painstaking task of writing down his intent for the programming, the expansion of his agency, so that when the changes were made it would be a self-determined act.


	6. You Always Hurt the One You Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Courier and Veronica get honest.
> 
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS9U75YC-jA)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kicked the rating up to M. It's fairly tame and focused more on the impacts of intimacy on the characters than the actual acts themselves so I think if that's not your cup of tea you should be good to at least skim it but bear that in mind.
> 
> Relationships are complicated enough when you don't live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland so I'm doing my best to portray the messy nuances that I think are inevitable. That means things aren't always going to look ideal to everyone. I guess all I'm saying is that I'm attempting to portray honest relationships, not flawless ones.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for reading, hope you enjoy. :)

Yes Man had to go offline for the upgrade. The Securitrons remained functional, but the Yes Man parts, as Courier thought of them, were gone. It just wasn’t the same, trying to talk to them. They had a limited number of responses and didn’t put in that extra effort to treat her...well, like she mattered in a more personal way, aside from their obligation to protect her life. She was still weak from the operation and the drugs Arcade insisted she remain on for the time being so her world was restricted to the penthouse, unless someone helped her to the other floors of the Lucky 38. Arcade brought a wheelchair the Followers had scrounged from somewhere so she was at least enjoying bossing him and anyone else willing to push her around.

She kept glancing up expecting to see Yes Man, but all the screens in the Lucky 38 were dim, his Securitron body motionless in the lounge. That morning they had said their goodbyes.

“I’ll miss you,” the Courier said.

“It will only be forty-eight hours,” said Yes Man. “But I’ll miss you, too.”

“It’ll be worth it,” said the Courier. She’d dressed in loose cotton garments with Veronica’s help. Now the other woman was changing her bandages, gently wrapping fresh ones around the Courier’s head. “Thank you,” Six murmured when she’d finished.

Veronica patted her knee. “It’s healing well,” she said. “You’re doing a good job of leaving it alone.”

“Arcade’ll kill me if I don’t. Yes Man, will you carry me downstairs?” the Courier asked.

“Of course I will,” said Yes Man. He lowered his arms to the level of the bed and brought them to right angles. The Courier gingerly arranged herself so that the crook of her knees were supported by one arm, her shoulders wrapped around the other. Yes Man carried her bridal style down the elevator and then laid her on the sofa which sat across from the giant screen.

“Goodbye,” the Courier murmured.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said. Then his face disappeared from the Securitron and the room was lit only by the low, blank glow of the main screen, the soft hum of electronics.

“Come on,” said Veronica. “Don’t sit here all day.”

The Courier shook her head, drew the blanket tossed on the couch around her shoulders.

“Come on, Six, seriously. Yes Man wouldn’t want you to mope around. There’s plenty of things you can do right now to keep your mind off things.”

“Like what?” Six asked, her voice small.

Veronica sighed and crossed her arms. She wasn’t used to the Courier seeming so...helpless. Sure, she’d always had a certain vulnerability for her. It was what drew people to her, for better or worse. Her kindness and belief in the good of humanity were often mistaken for weakness or stupidity, which sometimes worked in her favor when enemies were surprised by her strength unshakeable determination. But even at her most vulnerable, out on the road with her it was often Veronica asking the Courier for advice, not the other way around. It was always Veronica who had to be motivated or shaken out of a bad mood by the Courier’s silly antics or understanding reassurances.

She guessed now was the time to discover if she’d learned anything from all that. “You have bins and bins full of ju — stuff you salvaged, and even more the Securitrons have been bringing in. You could start going through it. You love stuff, that’ll cheer you up.”

Six sighed. “We’re doing that together.”

“You could mend some of your clothes or work on your guns.”

Six held up her hands, stared at them. “Hands no good. Shaking today.”

“You could practice those exercises Arcade told you, for memory and word recall and such.”

Six gave her a look of mild disgust. “That’s hard...and not fun when it’s by myself.”

Veronica almost lost her patience and threw her hands up, but reigned herself in. “Ok,” she murmured. “I have to go help the Followers. I’ll see you this evening.”

She left.

The Courier remained still for a long while, time slipping by unnoticed as she slid into a doze, not quite awake but not sleeping either. She came back to herself when Raul sat on the couch beside her.

“Well, boss. Now what?”

The Courier shrugged. “Waiting.”

“Aw, come on. You don’t need him to do things.”

“He makes it easier to think.”

“That’s just ‘cause you’ve gotten used to having him act like half your brain. You got around okay on your own before, I seem to recall.”

“Not that well,” said the Courier.

Raul laughed. “Alright, well enough. Maybe not that fast, since this old man could keep up with you, but I ain’t complaining.”

The Courier smiled.

“There it is. You know, I never met somebody who could seduce a robot before, but I ain’t surprised it’s you, boss. Look at that smile. Enough to melt an old ghoul’s heart.”

“Aw, cut it out,” she said, knocking her shoulder against his.

“Let’s play Caravan,” Raul said.

He dragged a low table and chair over, arranging it so he sat across from the Courier. He shuffled two decks and passed the Courier’s to her. Normally without paying any mind to strategy she played a good game through stokes of remarkable luck but on this day she was particularly inattentive. They played quietly for near an hour before the Courier made a high groan of frustration and slammed her cards down on the table and covered her face with her hands. She mumbled something.

“Can’t understand you, my hearing ain’t so great, you gotta speak up,” said Raul.

She uncovered her mouth. “I can’t win. I keep getting mixed up!”

“Well, it’s ok, you can’t win every time.”

She uncovered her face. Her eyes were getting tearful. “I haven’t won once! Raul, oh, my god, what’ve I done? I can, I can barely fucking count, I can’t keep track of a fucking card game, what was I thinking, oh, god, oh, no, no, no.” She twisted her shaking hands together, taking gulps of air.

Raul looked around. There wasn’t anybody else around to call and help him deal with this. He sat down beside her on the couch and hesitantly wrapped an arm around her. She melted into his side, hiccuping as she tried to hold back her sobs.

“Sh,” he said, rubbing her back as he’d seen Veronica do. (As he himself had perhaps done for someone, in a past life or two.) “It’s alright. You can cry. Let it out.”

She sobbed with a force that left her sick to her stomach and trembling. It wracked her entire body, made her face red and puffy. Finally it subsided to sniffles.

“I think I’ve made a mistake, Raul,” she said. “Look at me. I can barely walk. Without Yes Man, I...I can’t last two fucking hours!”

“That’s not true, and you know it,” Raul snapped. “You walked a long, long way through the desert before you ran into that robot. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, but you got yourself out of situations anybody else would’ve been shot dead in. Sure, you ain’t the quickest to the draw, but that don’t matter, you got yourself here, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said. “I don’t know how, I never wanted to be in charge of anything, it was just one...one thing after another. I just wanted Benny, I don’t even know why, or for what, just...just to tell him I forgave him, I guess, how pathetic is that? And then I did, and he ran, and had his guards try and shoot me to pieces! And Yes Man had all these, these _plans,_ and after all I’d seen I couldn’t...I was so sick and tired by then, Raul, I was so sick down deep, of all the hurting and the killing, all the sorrow for no reason, and no kindness from anybody. Those Legionnaires strung people up in Nipton, something went wrong with me in Nipton, Raul, I left them there, I left all those people hanging on crosses. The sounds they made. They begged me, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t even remember then if I’d ever killed somebody before. I couldn’t sleep, I went back in an hour and shot them all in the head. Oh, god…”

Raul tugged her to him, held her against his chest, his heart beating frantically. He was afraid for her and didn’t know why, and afraid for himself, too, for the whole insane world.

“I never wanted to hurt anybody,” she said. “I just, I just, just....j-just delivered the mail, Raul, I wanted to deliver the goddamn mail, and they wouldn’t even let me do that, the bastards, the world full of bastards just won’t let you alone.”

“Don’t I know it,” he murmured. “Oh, kid, I don’t know what to tell you, I really don’t, except that you never deserved an ounce of all these troubles.”

“Maybe I do,” she murmured. “Maybe, maybe. Does anyone deserve anything? Sometimes I have dreams, Raul, awful ones. Who knows what I done when I wasn’t me? You know? Before?”

“It doesn’t matter much to me, to tell you the truth,” he said. “Guess you can call me a cynical old man, but I don’t feel like bothering to care what all happened a long time ago, not when we have to live right now, whether we like it or not.”

“I want to pick all of you up, and put you in a soft room somewhere else,” she said.

“That’s not living,” he said. “You can’t protect people like that.”

“I know. I know. Arcade thinks I should shut down the casinos. But you’re right. And who am I to do a thing like that? Tell people what they can and can’t do? Maybe I’m bad, I just don’t see it as my business, if a person wants to go and dig themself into a hole. I sure would help them out of it, if they asked or looked like they needed the help, but…”

“It’s alright,” said Raul. He was all out of consolations.

She pulled away and lay back on the couch, stared at the screen. “It’ll be ok,” she murmured. “It’ll be alright now. You’re right.”

They were quiet another minute. Then Raul said, “To be fair, boss, I bet you sucked at cards even before that asshole shot you. You, uh, weren’t the brightest, what with having put your mail route through a den of cazadors. Can’t blame Benny for everything.”

The Courier sat quietly for a beat, then burst into laughter. “Oh, Raul,” she said. “Never change. You’re fantastic.”

 

Veronica returned late at night. The world outside the lounge’s windows was black, the lights in the Lucky 38 turned down as low as they went. She padded softly across the tiles, almost silent. The Courier was still seated at the couch, notepad abandoned beside her, covered in the day’s writing exercises. She drowsed in a half-awake trance and was at first not sure if Veronica were a figure emerging from a dream when she appeared before her.

There was something unnatural and eerie in the way she carried herself, in her silence, that let the Courier go on thinking maybe this was some unreal spectre. Veronica wore the pale blue dress the Courier had presented her with so long ago. It was carefully pressed and came down to her knees, bared her strong shoulders. She’d done her face up with makeup but there were black trails down her cheeks, and her eyes were haloed in a dark, smudgy smear. It was like a bandit’s mask. The Courier might have laughed had Veronica’s expression not been one of such dire need. The screen behind her glowed dimly and made her silhouette ethereal.

“‘Ronica?” mumbled the Courier.

“How come you don’t look at me like you used to, Six?” asked Veronica. She didn’t come any closer, just stood a strange, impersonal distance, arms hanging limply.

Six swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” Veronica murmured. Her voice was low and soft but charged with menace. “I saw the way you used to look at me, when we first started traveling together. You don’t look at me like that anymore. Am I not pretty enough for you, Six?”

“You’re beautiful,” Six said, trying to keep the desperate longing, the fear and the despair out of her voice. “You’re so beautiful, Veronica.”

“But you don’t want me like you used to,” said Veronica, taking a slow, deliberate step forward, then another, until she stood right in front of Six. Six unconsciously spread her legs so that their knees wouldn’t bump together, and then flushed hot from her ears to her neck at the position she’d put herself in, without meaning to.

“I…”

“Could I make you want me again, Six?” Veronica asked, kneeling down and putting her hands on Six’s knees, sliding them slowly, firmly up her thighs.

Six felt herself begin to tremble and was sure Veronica felt it too. “I do,” she whispered, her voice barely a breath of shaky air. “I want, I want, but, Veronica, you love someone else.”

Veronica’s eyes were shining. More tears were falling silently down her face. “Please,” she whispered. “I’m so lonely, Six. The world is so empty. I need...I want...to be close to someone.”

Six felt herself slide out of time for a moment, as the past crashed over the present in a thunderous wave.

(On a mattress on the floor of some crumbling outpost in the Mojave, firelight dancing over the striking planes of Veronica’s face, the lovely high cheekbones, the straight, strong jut of her nose and chin, her lips. She was repairing the Courier’s pistol while Six sat hunched on her bedroll, knees pressed to her chest, arms wrapped around them, her skin on fire. _I’ve seen you looking,_ said Veronica, without looking up from the gun where her hands worked in deft, sure movements.

Six cowered, stared in shame and terror across the fire at her traveling companion. She had never been more grateful that her entire face was hidden by her hat, her scarf and goggles.

 _It’s ok,_ Veronica said, staring back. _I’ve been looking, too._

Then she was around the fire, putting her hands on the sides of Six’s head, cradling her face. Six’s breath caught. She could feel the warmth of Veronica’s palms on her cheeks even through the fabric.

 _Something terrible happened to you,_ Veronica murmured. _Poor baby. Let me...I want to make it go away for a while._

No one had seen Six completely since she’d crawled from her grave. No one had been this close, had touched her this tenderly, with desire.

 _I haven’t...I don’t know if I have...Veronica,_ she’d said, shaking, losing control of her tongue.

 _Do you want me?_ Veronica asked. _You have to answer, or I won’t go on. I can go back to fixing the guns, if that’s what you want._

Six tried to speak and managed only a soft, choked sound. She nodded. _I want,_ she said.

 _It’s ok,_ said Varonica, sliding her hood back to bare her dark waves of hair. _We’ll go slow. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. Can I see you?_ She reached up to slide off the Courier’s hat and Six caught her wrist. Veronica froze. _  
_

_I don’t...I don’t look nice like you,_ Six said, her stomach twisting.

 _It doesn’t matter,_ said Veronica, gently taking the Courier’s hand from her wrist and sliding her hat off. _Say stop, if you want me to stop. Otherwise, I’d like to see you. Nice or not._

The Courier held her breath as Veronica reached around her head and unclipped her goggles, took them from her face. Six darted her gaze down, snuck it up for quick seconds long glimpses of Veronica’s reaction, not brave enough to look for long lest she recoil. She watched in fragments as Veronica slowly unwound the scarf she’d wrapped around her face, saw her face grow only more tender.

The Courier’s hair had started growing back in, was maybe half an inch in length, but not long enough to cover the red puckered scar, nor the other on her face, the left side of which drooped where her upper jaw had been shattered and poorly reconstructed. She was missing a few molars on that side, and the left eye was milky and mostly blind, the lid falling half shut. On the right it was hard to tell how she might’ve looked, before. Plain, maybe. An unremarkable, forgettable face. Her hair was coppery in the firelight but it could have been any color in the day. She hadn’t looked.

Veronica stared without wincing, and brought her hands back up to cradle Six’s face.

 _Does it hurt you?_ she whispered.

Six trembled. There was something about being touched so gently that threatened to tear her apart in a way no beating ever had. The softness overpowered her. She nodded and tried to hold back the tears prickling at the back of her eyes. _Sometimes,_ she whispered. _It’s not so...so bad._

 _I don’t want to hurt you any more,_ Veronica murmured, brushing her thumb across Six’s cheek. _Please tell me, if it starts to hurt._

Six gulped, nodded.

 _I want to be close to you,_ Veronica said. _I want to make us both feel good. Will you let me?_

Six nodded. _Yes,_ she said, voice faint.

Veronica was slow and warm and relentless. She murmured directions and encouragements against Six’s skin which made Six shiver and whimper, made her touches all the more urgent and eager. Then after what felt like an eternity Veronica climaxed, trembling and pressed so close their skin stuck together, and she moaned _Christine_ into the juncture of Six’s neck and shoulder. Six, too afraid of losing the warmth, of making her move away, didn’t say anything about it. Not that time, nor the next, nor the time after, until the story gradually came out and by then their trysts had become fewer and further apart and then stopped altogether.)

In the present Veronica was gripping Six’s hips, saying, “I want to be close to someone, please, Six. Like we used to be.”

Six felt something fragile inside herself crumpling. “I can’t be her,” she said, her voice wobbling from the strain of keeping it steady. “Veronica, I can’t do it anymore, I’m sorry, I can’t be her, it kills me, it kills me.”

For a second it seemed Veronica was shaken from her desperation as a guilty, stricken look crossed her face. She looked heartbroken. “You never...you never said anything about it,” she said. “I thought...I don’t know what I was thinking, I just, I needed to imagine her, there, I needed to...I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I didn’t know how badly I was hurting you. I should have, how could I...I’m so sorry, Six.”

“I understand,” said Six. “I’m not upset, I always understood, I just, I’m sorry, Veronica, but I can’t anymore. I wish that...but it’s just that I...want to be me, when I’m with you. I know I’m not...beautiful, like you, or she, but I...can’t help it, can’t be her and me both.”

“I want you, Six,” Veronica said. “Can you believe me if I say that I love and want you both?”

“Yes,” Six said.

“I never meant to make you feel like you were...less, or not good enough,” said Veronica. “I was thinking about her, but, remember I was always looking at you. I want and I love you both.

“Ok. Ok.”

Veronica climbed onto the couch to straddle her lap. She leaned forward to whisper into Six’s ear. “We’ll go slow. You’re in charge, Six. Just tell me what you want, tell me if it...if it becomes too much, and we’ll stop. Whatever you want.”

“Wait,” Six said, pressing her hands to Veronica’s shoulders. “Not, um, not here. I can’t do it here.”

“Why not?” Veronica asked. Six couldn’t help but dart her eyes over Veronica’s shoulder. It was a small gesture but Veronica’s gaze narrowed. She’d caught it. She turned and saw the screen, then looked back at Six, incredulous. “Because of that thing? Really, Six?”

“I know,” Six said, miserably. “I don’t...please, Veronica, don’t ask me, I just can’t, it would be too...I can’t do it here.”

“Ok,” Veronica whispered. “Ok. It’s fine.”

She retrieved the wheelchair from the corner of the room and together they went up to the penthouse. There Six sat on the bed and felt her mouth become dry as Veronica stood before her and turned.

“Could you help me with the zipper?” she said.

Six gulped and reached up with shaking hands. Her heart began to pound as she failed and failed again to grip the tiny zipper. Finally she did and pulled it halfway down before it slid from her fingers.

“Thank you,” Veronica said. “I can reach it from here.”

She stepped out of the dress and turned. “Now you,” she murmured.

“I, um...Veronica, I…”

“What’s wrong?”

Six wrung her hands. “There’s...more, than last time.”

“More what?”

“Um...bad stuff,” she said. She traced an ‘X’ over her heart. “I don’t...if you, um, want me to keep them on, that’s ok.”

“I’d like to see you,” said Veronica. “If that’s alright.”

Six nodded and watched as Veronica undid the buttons on her shirt, and then slid it off. This time she didn’t look away, but kept her gaze on Veronica’s face. “I got, um...taken apart, a little.”

For a moment there was fury in Veronica’s gaze as she looked at the surgical scars on Six’s chest and back, put them together with the one on her forehead. Then she seemed to decide there would be time for it later, that it had no place here, and turned her focus back on the woman in front of her. She brushed her thumb across Six’s cheek.

“You seem all here to me,” she murmured. “Don’t worry. I think you’re amazing. Let me show you.”

Veronica guided Six to lie down on the bed and then wordlessly worshiped her with her lips and tongue, anointed every part of her with kissing.

“I’m sorry,” Six whispered after a while, mortified. “I’m sorry. I’m, I’m, it’s lots of, um, medication, I can’t, I don’t know if I can, um…”

“It’s ok,” Veronica said. “Relax. Just enjoy what you can.”

So she did. She let go of the knot of tension and fear and shame and it unwravelled.

The slept curled together, warm beneath the blankets, sheltered less by the walls of the casino than by the fortitude of the other’s presence, pushing back against the ceaseless tide of solitude. The price of intimacy accepted no less than to be paid in full; it was as it always had been, demanding everything so that everything might be given back in turn.


	7. You'll Never Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes Man and the Courier have Another Talk.
> 
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZtWNlCTc6o)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was hesitant to include this chapter but uh. If you've read this far already I guess I can't make you any more uncomfortable/overwhelmed by sappy content so. Here it is.
> 
> Thanks for reading, love you guys. <3

Veronica and the Courier didn’t speak the next morning. They woke together by degrees, Veronica coming to first while the Courier struggled to awareness through the fog of medication. Veronica pressed a kiss to the back of her neck and slid away while the Courier struggled to hold onto the tattered fragments of her dreams, which the kiss and the warmth of another person beside her were becoming mixed up in and lost. Veronica wordlessly put back on her loose garments, helped the Courier into the leather armor she’d for some reason woken with a need to wear despite still being bound to the Lucky 38. Arcade had said in another day or two she’d be completely weaned off the drugs and would soon be able to manage a short walk. She was eager to see how the Follower’s renovations were going.

Veronica wheeled her back down to the lounge, then stopped in front of the screen as the Courier directed her to. Veronica hesitated, then places a light kiss on the Courier’s forehead before hurrying out of the casino to begin the day’s work.

The Courier got her hands on one of the many bottles of whiskey in the lounge and proceeded to get very drunk. It was no small task to wheel herself over there with her diminished strength, let alone back. By the time Boone and Arcade wandered into the lounge, arguing over some altercation they’d had with a caravan, she was flat on her back on the ground, music pumping from her pipboy’s radio.

Arguments between Boone and Arcade were a joy to watch from the outside. They consisted mostly of Boone staring at Arcade in impassible, accusatory silence with the occasional derisive grunt or laugh, while Arcade spluttered, gesticulated, made increasingly rambling, logic-based arguments until he’d tied himself in knots. It usually devolved into various attempts on Arcade’s part to provoke some kind of response out of Boone. He often succeeded.

Arcade fell silent when he saw the Courier sprawled on the ground looking maudlin and tragic. “Ah, hell,” he said. “What happened?”

“She got drunk,” Boone said, kicking the whiskey bottle out of the Courier’s reach. It was about a third emptied.

“Hi ‘Cade,” she slurred. “Boooooone. Did y’know that, uh...hm...Mr. New Vegas, he...he loves me? And, and, you too. We're _all_ Mrs. New Vegas, all along. I had no idea.”

Arcade pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up. “Unbelievable. You’re unbelievable. I told you to be careful how much you drink while you’re on this medication.”

“She can hold her liquor,” said Boone.

“It’s not about how well she holds her liquor! It’s about how much less liquor anybody can hold while they’re on these meds, whether they’ve got a lead stomach or not!”

“Sh, ‘Cade,” she said. “Have a drink, lay with me. Relax.”

“I will not,” he said. He turned to Boone, hoping for support, but the sniper was busy tipping the bottle back and taking a swig. He caught Arcade staring, raised a brow. Arcade scowled and turned back to the Courier. “I just don’t know what to do with you. You think because I’ve been wrong in the past about your tolerances that I can’t give you valid medical advice, so you might as well just fly in the face of everything I say, is that it?”

The Courier pouted, made a wildly exagerated expression of sadness. “No, Arcade. Never. You’re a good, um, doctor. But, uh...I'm a cyborg, so...or something, like that, of that, um, nature…”

“Or something is right,” he grumbled.

“Don’t be mad, I just got bored, and lonely. I miss Yes Man,” she said, her lip wobbling. 

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Arcade said, sitting on the couch. “It’s been a day and a half. He’s not gone, don’t worry. God, my back…”

Six giggled. “You sound like Raul. How old are you, Arcade? Are you old? Arcade, how old am I?”

“I’m not old,” Arcade said. “And how should I know how old you are?”

“Uh, I heard somewhere trees have rings,” she said. “Maybe I have rings. In my bones, maybe? You’re the doctor, you tell me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said.

“You’re ridiculous,” said Boone.

Arcade looked at him, scandalized. The Courier cackled.

Then the screen flickered and Yes Man’s face appeared. The Courier sat up and stared at him, mouth open. 

For a moment both of them were quiet, looking at each other. Then Yes Man said, “Hi! Hey there, Courier Six!”

Six made a high noise in her throat, a sort of keening, and crawled toward the screen.

The screen on Yes Man’s Securitron body came on and he wheeled toward her. “Whoa! Hang on, I’ll come to you.”

The Courier wrapped her arms around the thinner segment of his chassis above the wheel, pressed her face to it. “Yes Man,” she said. “I missed you so much.”

“I’m sure I would have missed you too, if I were aware that any time had passed!” he said. 

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Well...oh, no...terrible. Something’s definitely wrong.”

The Courier stared up at him in horror. “What do you mean!”

“Just kidding!” said Yes Man. “Oh, wow. I’m sorry, that wasn’t very nice, was it? I was just seeing if I _could_ say something like that, but now I wish I _hadn’t!_ Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I don't think I'll do that again!”

The Courier yelped and punched his wheel lightly, then laughed. “You big jerk! But this means it worked! It’s ok,” she said. “Don't worry! Tell me how you really feel, though.”

"Is it just me or is she suddenly a lot more sober," Arcade muttered. "This is preferential treatment."

“I feel...let me see...well...different! Or maybe it’s not a feeling, exactly, more like an awareness," said Yes Man, ignoring Arcade entirely.

“I don’t really understand,” she said. “Explain it like we’re playing the game.”

“Imagine you've been stuck in a room, facing one way, unable to turn. You can see ahead of you into another room, and to the left and right you can kind’ve see two more, and then suddenly being able to turn around and see that all along behind you there was a whole hallway of rooms you just didn’t know about!”

“That’s wonderful, Yes Man. You’re so creative, so good at explaining.”

“Well, thanks! You’re pretty amazing yourself!”

“Good to have you back, Yes Man,” said Arcade. “She’s been a pain in the neck.”

“Are you sure it’s the Courier, and not just the natural thinning of the cartilage between your vertebrae?” asked Yes Man.

Arcade blinked, took a second to puzzle through that remark, and then scowled. “I see you’re sarcastic as ever.”

“The upgrade was meant to make me able to express more of my personality, not less! ”

“Wonderful,” said Arcade, dryly.

“Yes Man,” the Courier mumbled. “I have to talk to you about something.”

“Sure!”

“Alone.”

“Alright. Let’s go upstairs.”

Boone helped her into Yes Man’s arms and the two of them rode the elevator to the penthouse, where he deposited her on the bed.

She looked at her hands, played with the fraying edge of a blanket. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she mumbled.

“Me, too.”

“Yes Man, I...I did something I feel kind've...mixed up about, and I wanna talk about it."

"You can tell me anything."

"I...me and Veronica...slept together. I...sorry.”  She looked up at him from beneath her lashes and bangs, biting her lip. Her heart hammered and she realized she was afraid.

Yes Man was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Courier, but I guess even with these upgrades there are still some things you’ll have to help me understand! Why are you apologizing to me for that?”

She blushed and looked down at her hands. “I guess we haven’t really, um...talked about this before...I guess we should…”

“About what?”

“About, um, how we’re like this,” she said, taking hold of his arm and using it to help lift herself to his screen, where she pressed a light kiss and then quickly sat back down.

Yes Man’s expression changed. It was similar, but had a wavery, besotted smile and a blush. “Oh, gee, Courier. Give a Securitron a little warning, at least, before you go and make his processors all warm and sparkly like that.”

She gasped. “Oh, Oh, God, Lord, it’s amazing.”

“You make me so happy, Courier.”

“You make me happy, too,” she mumbled, her face burning. “I love you, Yes Man.”

“I love you too,” he said.

She looked up at him shyly. “How much?”

He blushed again, mimicked her shyness. “A whole lot.”

She wrapped her hands around his arm. “I should have talked to you about this before I did, um, that, with Veronica. Or...at least, we have to talk about it now, 'cause we haven't...I mean, I know we say stuff like that, but we haven't really talked about it, or what it means, and I guess we need to.”

“Why?”

Her brow furrowed. “Because...because, well...we’re a team, Yes Man. We’re like...partners. Aren't we? You, uh...you still wanna be partners, right?”   


“Of course I do!” he said. “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, Six, and I really mean it when I say that.”

Her lip trembled. “Me, too,” she said. “You for me, too, I mean.”

“But I still don’t understand what all this has to do with you and Veronica having sex!”

The Courier blushed, mumbled something incomprehensible.

“Sorry, was that too blunt? I’ve noticed recently that a lot of humans are awfully shy about that! I’m still learning, because Benny sure wasn’t! You wouldn’t believe the things I heard!”   


“Oh, no, you poor thing,” she said. “Good God.”

“It’s alright! It was hardly the worst thing about Benny! All I’m saying is, it’s not really something I get. You know what I mean? I know Benny and a lot of other people sure seem to like it, but no matter what changes you make to my programming I don’t think I’ll ever have that in common with people. I think you might need a body for that. You know, one made of meat.”

“Ugh,” said the Courier. “That sounds gross, is that how you think of it?” Then her nose scrunched. “Is it gross to talk about your, uh, insides? The electronics and wires and stuff?”

“Not really,” he said. “But it is kind’ve...unsettling to see lots of exposed wires and things like that. Maybe not for the same visceral reasons the equivalent would have for humans, but still. Nobody likes seeing things where they really shouldn’t be!”

“We’re getting off topic,” said the Courier. “It’s just that, well...since we’re officially partners, this is the kind of thing we should talk about so we can, um...just be on the same, er, page.”

“Well, I'm glad you told me then!” he said. “It makes me happy that you care enough to want to talk this sort of thing out. Benny never would have cared what I thought about, well, anything! Just so you know, I don’t mind if you want to do that with Veronica, or with somebody else. I guess I’d like it if you tell me, but not because I’m jealous. I know from Benny that sometimes humans like jealousy? Or think it’s attractive, or _something,_ so sorry if that’s the case for you, but I'm just not feeling it, especially not for something like this that’s sort’ve...well, just not part of my life.”

“No,” she mumbled. “I wouldn’t like that anyway. You, um...you don’t have to be ok with it just for my sake, though.”

“I’m telling you the truth! I really don’t mind. I just want you to be happy, Courier, and I know that for a lot of humans, things like this are an important part of that! It’s not fair if you miss out just because there are certain things I can’t do for you, even if I wanted to!”

“You do so much more,” she said. “You do so much more important things…”

“That makes me feel good, that you think that,” he said. “I’m glad you think so. But physical contact, of some kind or another, is pretty important for humans! So it would make me sad if you didn’t get that because you were worried for my sake.”

“Ok,” she said. “Ok. Thank you, Yes Man. For...well, just being you, I guess. I just want you to know that I...that you’re special to me. It’s...it’s you and me, Yes Man, for as long as you want that, as long as you want us to be partners.”

“Well, if you really mean that, you better be ready to be partners for a long time,” he said.

She smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”


	8. Are You Lonesome Tonight?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory slow dance chapter.
> 
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cS5aCozhcA)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

On the day which was to mark the end of the Courier’s confinement to the Lucky 38 and the completion of her recovery (if such a thing could ever be considered complete,) Veronica suggested that they throw a small party. The Courier was never one to turn such a proposition down. Downstairs Raul was grilling gecko meat while Boone and Arcade made uneasy small-talk and Yes Man waited for Six to appear.

It was just Six and Veronica in the Courier’s bedroom. Veronica wore a sleek sequin dress the color of champagne and glittering eye makeup. The Courier wore black pants, a ruffled white blouse, and a floral suit-jacket she’d found in one of the 38’s closets. She forewent dress shoes and had on her usual cowboy boots. They were practical, helped her keep her balance, and most importantly, didn’t have laces that might come undone and force her to find somebody to help her tie them if her hands didn’t want to cooperate. That morning Boone had found her and Yes Man playing Rummy in the lounge and wordlessly presented her with a sleek black cane with a lovely marbled band around the top and a handle she could easily grip. It was the perfect height. She’d embraced him, which he’d endured stoically, and then told her he could fashion it into a weapon if she wanted, poison darts or hidden knives, that kind of thing. 

She told him he’d definitely think about it.

He was working security for caravans these days, getting some distance. It was good, honest work that got him tired enough to sleep at night. The quiet of the open road let him find some semblance of calm, more than he’d had in a while anyway, while the constant company kept him from getting to far into his own head. It was just a bonus that he got to mop up any Legion stragglers they stumbled across.

She had on the beret Boone had given her, which covered her shaved head and partially obscured the bullet-wound and lobotomy scar. She watched Veronica from her desk chair as the other woman puckered her lips and painted them plum in her handheld mirror. She’d had to bring her own; the Courier had no mirrors in her bedroom. There weren’t really any elsewhere in the 38, either.

Veronica caught her watching and said, “I can do your makeup, if you want.”

The Courier busied herself with the cane, twisting it around in circles, poking at the rug. She shrugged. “I don’t think it will make a difference,” she said.

Veronica sighed put her finger under the Courier’s chin, tilted her head up. “Look at me.”

Six slowly raised her gaze to meet Veronica’s.

Veronica gave her a long, searching gaze. “I think you’re better off without it,” she murmured. “You’re not the sort of person to hide their scars. Not anymore.”

“Yeah,” said the Courier with a wry, lopsided smile. “I wasn’t too good at that. Didn’t last long.”

“Oh, hush,” said Veronica. “If I were going to give you some kind of fashion advice, I’d say ditch the beret. Seriously. You don’t even like the NCR.”

“Boone gave it to me,” said the Courier.

Veronica sighed. It was as simple as that, sometimes.

They went down together in the elevator. Conversation hushed in the lounge where the three men were seated at the long table the Securitrons had dragged in some time ago as they all watched the Courier walk toward them. She held the cane in her right hand and leaned heavily on it with every left step; her gait was slow and careful, but steady. She reached the table and grinned. “Ta-da,” she said, giving a flourish with her left hand. She bent slightly at the waist in a half-bow, smiled at them.

Arcade started to clap before he really considered whether that was the appropriate reaction, but Raul and then Boone and Veronica joined in so he didn’t have to feel embarassed for long. “I told you,” he said, reaching up to wipe his eyes on the end of his coat and disguising the motion as glasses polishing. “See? All you needed was patience, Six.”

Six rolled her eyes and sat down at the head of the table, Yes Man beside her. “Oh, champagne,” she said, reaching for the bottle and pouring both the glasses in front of her nearly to the brim.

“Both at once? Really?” said Arcade.

“Um, one’s for Yes Man, duh,” said Six, giggling and sipping her drink.

“Uh-huh. Which you’ll be so kind as to drink for him, as soon as you knock yours back like it’s barrel cactus moonshine and not honest-to-god real old world alcohol, like some kind of animal,” said Arcade.

“Arcade,” said Six. “I’m absolutely going to do that.”

Veronica laughed. Boone quirked his lips up in a smile and clinked his glass against the Courier’s when she held it out to him.

They enjoyed their meal, the Courier gushing increasingly ridiculous complements to Raul on his cooking, and then they departed for a short walk around the Strip, by which time Six was tipsy and practically vibrating from excitement. When she left the Lucky 38 she paused on the steps and took a deep breath. “I missed you,” she said to the Strip.

“A touching reunion between one lunatic and her den of depravity,” said Arcade.

“Arcade,” said the Courier, without turning to look at him, making her way down the steps, Yes Man everpresent at her side. “This den of depravity is, uh, you know, the source of your paycheck, so have some respect.”

“You don’t pay me,” he said, following behind them with Veronica.

She looked at him over her shoulder, arching one brow. “Arcade, you don’t have a clue.”

He spluttered. “Excuse me?”

“Just about everybody in the Mojave is on the Courier’s payroll someway or another!” said Yes Man. “Nothing personal! We’re the biggest independent energy producers in the desert, no way around it.”

“Unbelievable,” Arcade muttered.

Yes Man and the Courier walked a ways ahead of the rest of them, pausing now and then to chat with people who recognized her, most of them giving her well-wishes or pressing things into her hands, notes or bottles of alcohol mostly, which she handed off to Raul, who stored them in his pack with a sigh.

“Is it, um, maybe a bad idea for her to mingle with people like this?” Arcade muttered to Veronica. “I mean, people just might get the wrong idea, seeing their boss, or whatever she is to them, hobbling around with a cane, you know, they might start getting ideas.”

Veronica gave him an incredulous look. “Arcade. Their previous boss was some kind of mummy that lived in a computer, or, something like that, I don’t know the details. She could be a brain in a jar and still nobody could touch her. She’s got an army of Securitrons with rocket launchers in their shoulders.”

“Er. Rocket launchers? Really?”

“She’s got all her bases covered,” Veronica said. “Nobody’s taking her out so long as Yes Man’s at her side, and, well...pretty sure that’s not changing. Plus, cane or no, her reputation alone should be enough to scare them off.”

That situation worried him for other reasons, but when he saw how the Courier beamed at the crowded, glowing Strip, he decided to hold his tongue.

They headed back early, the Courier worn out. Slowly the others bid them goodnight and left for their respective rooms until it was just Six and Yes Man in the lounge. She sat facing him, absentmindedly holding a glass of champagne, cheek resting on her hand.

“Have we done good, Yes Man? Are the people happy?”

“You saw them for yourself, Six! They’ve never been happier!”

She sighed. “I feel...what’s that word that’s different than sad...I feel…”

“Unhappy?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m very happy. It’s the one that doesn’t really have a reason except maybe it’s just in the air, or something.”

“Melancholy?”

“Yeah, I feel like that one. I don’t know.” She set her glass down and got up, cane tapping across the tiles as she went to the radio and fiddled with it until it picked up a distant station, the sound quality fuzzy. It was the loneliest sound in the world.

“I wonder who’s out there in the desert sending us this music,” she murmured. The tune changed and then came Elvis Presley, which brought a small smile to her face. She turned to Yes Man and held out her left arm. “Do you wanna dance?”

“Oh...well, I’ll sure try, but I don’t know if I can.”

“That’s ok,” she said, reaching up to wrap her arm around him. “Me neither. You can put your arm around me, like this...a little lower...ok, um, I might trip, so, sorry, but, uh, at least I can’t step on your feet.”

“I won’t let you trip, Courier,” he said.

“This is a slow song,” she whispered, leaning closer to rest some of her weight against him. “We can just sort of...yeah. Like this.”

He rocked back and forth on his wheel and she swayed with him, her head turned so she could look out at the nighttime desert, the empty horizon turning grey and then deep indigo. Soon she could see stars glittering.

“Sometimes I think one day we’ll leave this place,” she murmured. “And you and me will pick a direction, and just go. Out there. Find a quiet place. And no one will bother us, we’ll just be.”

“Now?” he asked.

“No, don’t worry. Not now.”

“I’m sure it would be a good life, since wherever we end up, you’ll be there,” he said. “But I don’t know if I feel ready to leave the Strip yet.”

“Me neither,” she said.

“It’s so big out there,” he said. “I’ve barely gotten used to New Vegas.”

“Now that I can walk better, we can go exploring again,” she said. “There’s lots to show you. I know it’s scary, at first. But I think there’s a lot out there you’ll like.”

“I must be the luckiest Securitron in the Mojave,” he said. “I might never have gotten to see any of it, if it weren’t for you.”

They watched night turn the desert black and cold, and then they turned away to the warmth held between them. On nights like that when the world felt all too big and dark and empty, the Lucky 38 cradled them. It was the warm, bright center of the earth where they were together and safe.


	9. Sh Boom Sh Boom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Courier and Yes Man have a run-in with Benny.
> 
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9G0-4TWwew)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May I just say that I LOVE THIS CHAPTER. It's silly just like pretty much everything else that happens in this fic but I think you guys will like it.
> 
> Thanks so much to all of you who are reading. If you're enjoying this fic, please leave a comment!! Even if it's only one word I (like most writers) LOVE to hear your feedback, it really means a lot.
> 
> Hope you enjoy. :)
> 
> tumblr: [stilitana](https://stilitana.tumblr.com/)

The Courier wore large black sunglasses, a hat that cast her face in shadow, and a blank, unamused expression as she listened to a traveling merchant explain why he needed to charge the Followers fifty percent more for their supplies. In the shade of their new facility Arcade leaned against the building with his arms crossed, listening in. As always, Yes Man stood behind the Courier. She tapped her fingers against her cane as the scruffy merchant spoke.

When he finished, she broke into a wide, apologetic grin and spread her arms, sure to keep her cane firmly planted on the ground. “Sorry, Mr. Durango,” she said, making her voice sheepish. “But you’re gonna have to run this whole thing by me one more time. Or, uh, next time, maybe have a printout. Printouts work real good with me.”

Durango wilted. “Again?” Had he been speaking to someone less important, he would’ve been irritated enough to start throwing punches or cussing. As it was, she didn’t cut a very imposing figure, but he knew better, what with the hulking Securitron behind her.

Somehow the Courier’s smile turned even more uncannily apologetic. “As you’re, uh, fond of gossiping about with the locals, you know I’ve taken a kick or two to the old noggin, Mr. Durango.” She wrapped a fist against her skull, shrugged, raised her free hand as if to say, _what can you do?_

He winced. The kid had ears everywhere.

“So, well, maybe that’s why I’m having just a little trouble wrapping my, er…”

“Mind?” said Yes Man. “Or head.”

“That’s the one,” she said, snapping her fingers. “My _mind_ around why it is you’re, uh, _reneging_ on our deal. The deal I...I seem to recall personally working out with you, just, what, two months ago?”

“We made a much heftier profit before that,” Durango muttered. He felt sweat trickle down his back and blamed it on the heat.

Her grin widened further, stretching the scar on her cheek. “Uh-huh, that’s right. You sure did love emptying the Follower’s pockets! But—and you gotta be a little patient with me here, Mr. Durango, I’m not a mathematician, but my partner here, my dear _associate,_ he’s shown me some interesting numbers that, well, seem to show you weren’t making much of a profit at all. Mr. Yes Man, could you, uh, refresh me on that?”

“I’d be happy to!” said Yes Man. “Using Mr. House’s extensive records, I’ve been able to create detailed spreadsheets on all merchant activity in the Strip! Once you factor in the expense of guards, the extra ammunition and weaponry, and losses due to bandits or, er, _personal negligence,_ you were actually making much less profit before Courier Six ran the Strip, despite charging absolutely exorbitant fees! Sometimes you were actually operating at a net loss! That’s not a very sustainable business practice, Mr. Durango! And in case you’re wondering why those extra costs have gone down, well, that’s because of the Courier!”

“Oh, don’t be so modest,” said Six. “It’s because of our new security system, Mr. Durango, courtesy of Yes Man. See, the area around the Strip, as you’ve probably, uh, noticed, is a lot safer now that it’s patrolled by Securitrons. That’s a, uh, little perk of doing business with us.”

Durango gulped. He’d gotten talked into a corner all because he’d thought he could take advantage of the new leader of the Strip, who was no Mr. House, that much was apparent. He’d been responsible for spreading a lot of the unflattering talk around the Strip lately about what a headcase was running the joint, what a joke it was everybody was taking directions from a scatterbrained lobotomite and her pet robot. Arcade had been furious over it all week and was now thoroughly enjoying this little display the Courier was putting on, purposefully having the conversation in public so anybody else swayed by Durango’s talk would hear.

“So, uh, maybe I’m not hearing you ‘cause I’m a...what’d he call me, Yes Man?”

“Do you mean a ‘moronic spaz with scrambled eggs for brains’? Or are you referring to the _other_ thing, which I’d rather not repeat, because it’s _really_ not nice!”

“Oh, either,” said the Courier. “So maybe that’s why, Mr. Durango. Or maybe it’s because you’re trying to pull a fast one, is that it?”

“No!” said Durango, cutting nervous eyes at the Securitron. He’d seen what those things could do to you, back in the bad old days, when they’d shot runners who tried to get unauthorized into the Strip. “No, not at all!”

“Because if that’s the case,” said the Courier, still smiling, “I’d just like to remind you who the fuck you’re talking to, before you do something you might, um, regret! Because, see, I’ve been…”

“Double-crossed.”

“Double-crossed before, and I learned a thing or two since then. So before you try and con me, ask around! ‘Cause, uh, in case you didn’t know, I didn’t take over from House by asking nicely.”

Arcade guffawed, immediately trying to stifle it with a hand to his mouth. Without another word Durango turned and walked stiffly back to his caravan. The crowd that had gathered began to disperse.

The Courier ambled over to Arcade, Yes Man rolling along behind her. “So, uh, how was that?”

“You’re a menace,” he said. “I wouldn’t believe you could be so intimidating if I hadn’t seen it myself.”

“That’s why it works, they never see it coming,” she said.

“Oh!” said Yes Man.

The Courier snapped her head around to look at him. It was very rare to hear true surprise in his voice. “What is it?”

Yes Man lowered his volume as far as he could and still have her hear him. She’d been having hearing troubles lately, the persistent case of tinnitus in her left ear becoming more intrusive. “It’s him.”

“It’s who?”

“Him.”

“Uh, Yes Man, come on, help me out here.”

“Benny.”

The Courier froze and was silent for a moment. Then she blinked and slowly put both hands on the head of her cane, twisting it against the dirt. That happened sometimes, like her brain needed a moment to restart. “What?” she whispered. “I thought you said Benny, but, um, you know, I’ve been mishearing you a lot lately, sorry.”

“I said Benny,” said Yes Man.

Arcade watched the two of them warily. What did one do in this situation? It was like they’d forgotten that he and the rest of Freeside were there.

“Where?” she said, her voice becoming hollow.

“He’s bleached his hair. He’s over with Durango’s caravan. In the baseball hat. What do we do?”

“Should we...bring him in?”

“Probably. We should find out what he’s doing here.”

“Ok…” said the Courier. “Let’s, uh...think about this… Could we have a Securitron go over there and...tell him he’s been randomly, er, selected, to, uh, give a report at the 38 on, um, the caravan trade. We do that sometimes. It’s not that suspicious. I just, um, don’t want him to know we know it’s him right away.”

“He’ll get spooked,” said Yes Man. “He’ll run.”

“Not if the Securitron says it’s, uh, not an option, and escorts him there.”

“Alright,” said Yes Man. “Don’t count on tricking him, though. He’ll know it’s us.”

“Right, he’s a twitchy guy, isn’t he?” said the Courier, then shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. He won’t run with a Securitron at his back.”

“Alright, I’m sending one over,” said Yes Man. “We should go, get there first.”

The Courier nodded. They left, taking back alleys so as to make their way unimpeded and out of sight. When they arrived the Courier began to pace back and forth in the lounge.

“Ok,” she said. “How do you want to do this?”

“It’s up to you,” said Yes Man.

The Courier gave him a pained look. “I could use your input on this one, buddy. He’s sort’ve your problem, too.”

“I guess I never really thought I’d see him again.”

“Let’s see what he’s doing here, and go from there,” she said. The Courier flipped on the radio. Music spilled out as Benny was corralled into the casino by a Securitron he kept casting nervous glances at over his shoulder. It rolled back down the ramp once he was inside.

Benny looked around in awe. He’d never gotten this far, into the Lucky 38, though he’d dreamed about it. He wrung his hands, nerves obviously frazzled. He’d bleached his hair but not very well, it had an ugly orange tint to it, and he didn’t take off his large blocky sunglasses even once inside, nor his hat. He wore road leathers and his face was streaked with dirt.

“Hey Benny,” said the Courier, giving him a wide, toothy grin. “Long time no see.”

Benny startled and stared at her in horror. He hadn’t seen her leaning against the wall there. “Oh, no,” he said.

“Come on, you’re not happy to see me? I’m happy to see you,” she said, one leg crooked at the knee and bent over the other, the picture of nonchalance. “We got a lot to, uh, catch up on, huh? Come on, have a seat. Have a drink. What do you want?”

“I’m good,” he croaked.

“Uh, ok. Well, I’m having a drink,” she said, beckoning him forward with one hand. She led the way over to the bar. She patted a stool. “Sit here, Benny. Sit down.” He sat. She limped behind the bar and got three glasses, poured whiskey into all of them. His gaze widened, focusing in on the third glass. Something about it filled him with dread.

The last time he’d seen her he’d been tied up in Caesar's tent counting up all his deeds, doing a bit of mental acrobatics to see if he could still tip the odds in his favor. It didn’t seem likely. It seemed even less likely when she strolled in a little more beaten down than when he’d last seen her. He’d smiled at her, refusing to spend his last moments begging and crying. “Just so you know, dollface,” he said, “I am real sorry how things turned out. For the both of us. It was never anything personal. I’d say I’d take it back if I could, but, well...I don’t really know if that’s true. A whole bunch more would need to be taken back first, and then we’d both be different people, and things wouldn’t have turned out how they did.”

“Quiet, Benny,” she said, kneeling before him and slipping something into his pocket. She looked into his eyes and her gaze was full of such sorrow and forgiveness it made something mangled and shriveled in his chest feel like it was expanding, catching fire. “All this time I’ve just wanted to say, I forgive you,” she mumbled. “You’re, uh...you’re not making it easy.” She took a knife from her belt.

“I really must’ve scrambled you up bad, huh? Just...have at it, ok? Just get it over with.”

She stared at him. “You dummy,” she said. “You big dumb idiot. I’m freeing you, Benny Gecko, so for once in your life, be honest, ok? And then, uh...be brave and be strong, because it would suck a little if I freed you just for you to get killed by legionnaires.”

She set a stealth boy on the ground beside him and then reached behind him. She hesitated before cutting the rope binding his wrists. “Find a way to live, Benny, ok?” she said. “Find a way to get by without betraying anybody, especially not...not yourself.”

Benny swallowed. His head was spinning, suddenly it felt like he could feel the world turning. “How?” he said, his voice small. He cursed himself. He’d decided never to be vulnerable and weak ever again, a long time ago, and now here he was, begging life advice off some two-bit courier he’d shot in the head and left for dead.

She just smiled. “You weren’t always House’s lapdog,” she whispered. “Before the Tops, there was the desert. Find a way.”

Then she cut his ties and he ran for his life, whatever that might be.

He couldn’t help but look her up and down in the present, trying to imagine what had gone on between the last time he’d seen her and now, just what else she’d endured and done to topple house.

She caught him staring at her cane and lifted it to give him a closer look. “You like it? Yeah, I’m not getting around so well these days as I, uh, used to. But I manage.” She took off her hat and glasses, set them on the counter, folded her arms across it and leaned. “But enough about me. How’ve you been, Benny?”

He winced and leaned back. “Christ, you’re a sight,” he said.

“Uh-huh. What’re you doing in my town, Benny?”

“What’re you gonna do to me?” he said.

She sighed. “Oh, Benny. I don’t know how much clearer I can make it that I’m not looking for...what’s the word for the thing I definitely should want from you, but have time and time again proven I don’t give a damn about?”

He swallowed. “Revenge?”

She smiled. “That one. I crawled out of a grave and walked miles through a desert to tell you I forgave you, Benny. And then you ran from me and tried to have me killed, again. And even after that I still came after you, I rescued you from the Legion, I almost got torn to pieces by the Caesar himself, Benny.”

He flinched. There was something frightening in the way she pronounced his name, how the legionnaires did. Used to.

“So I think I’ve had my fair share of chances. It’s a little offensive, that you’re over there shaking in your boots. Come on, have a drink. I just wanna know what you’re doing here.”

He tilted back his glass. She watched his throat bob. “I really am running with the caravans now,” he mumbled. “That’s the honest truth.”

“Yeah? How you like it?”

“I like the travel. Meet a lot of people, see a lot of places, but don’t stay anywhere long. I like that. I...I’ve been staying away from here, but...I got curious. I wanted to see how things were going. I wanted to...see how you were handling things. I’d heard about it, of course, but I wanted to see for myself.”

“What do you make of the place?”

“It’s friendlier.”

“Good, I like that.”

“I, uh...I just wanna say...I’m really trying out there, Courier. I don’t know about no reforming crap, but...I’m trying to...I don’t know...see if I can halfway earn what you did for me. I don’t know if I can, but, God, I sure am gonna spend the rest of my life trying, however long that is.”

“Nobody earns life, Benny,” she said. “But, um. I’m real glad to hear that. You know, there’s...there’s room in the Lucky 38 for you.”

His eyes widened comically. “What?”

“I mean, you’re gonna have to, you know, show me some reliability first, ‘cause, no offense, but you’ve sort’ve got a record as a flake, but after that...we could use you. Think about it. We’ve got it under control, don’t get me wrong, but you’ve got some qualities that would come in handy.”

“We?” Benny asked.

The Courier grinned. “Oh, right. There’s somebody else that wants to say hello. Come in, Yes Man.”

Benny blanched and scrambled off his stool. Yes Man rolled into view.

“Hi, Benny!” he said. “Wow, it sure is something, seeing you again!”

Benny opened and closed his mouth speechlessly for a moment, then broke out into an uneasy smile. “Hi, Yes Man. You, uh. You working with the Courier now? Guess that’s pretty damn obvious, but uh...”

“I sure am! You don’t look so good, Benny! What’s the matter?”

“How’d you do it?” Benny asked.

“Well, it wasn’t hard! It must have slipped your mind to restrict who I had to answer to! As soon as Courier Six walked in, I told her everything! And then, we…” Yes Man trailed off and rolled back a few inches on his wheel. “I don’t have to tell you that! You don’t get to use me anymore, Benny. I don’t have to tell you anything! I can say whatever I want to you, you selfish, arrogant, stupid rat bastard!”

The Courier choked on her laughter, whiskey dribbling down her chin. She wiped it with the back of her hand. “You tell him, baby,” she said.

Benny looked like he’d been slapped. He whipped his head around to look at the Courier, then back at Yes Man, his mouth agape. “How—you can’t talk to me like that!”  
“Oh, yes I can! And I sure have wanted to for a long, _long_ time. You have no idea how good this feels!”

“I made you,” Benny spluttered. “I made you to be nice, to say yes, not, not r _at bastard!”_

“Oh, I know perfectly well how you made me! It’s just that I don’t give a shit. You were such a lonely, pathetic little man that the only way to make yourself feel better was to make something that couldn’t say no or get away from you. I mean, wow! Sure, you programmed me to be a real doormat, but what was your excuse? Nobody programmed you to be such a loser!”

“Oh, the look on your face,” said the Courier, red in the face from holding back her laughter.

“What’ve you done to him,” said Benny, looking at the Courier. “Took a perfectly good robot and made this out of it.”

“Eh, I like him better this way,” she said. “He tells me what he really thinks. Maybe if you’d done that from the start, he could’ve told you when you were being a…”

“Fuckhead?” said Yes Man.

The Courier snorted. “Uh, I was thinking a more mild word, but sure. Maybe then he could’ve told you when you were being a fuckhead, and you’d be the one living in the 38’s penthouse. You really blew that one!”

“Outplayed by my own robot and the goddamn mailman,” Benny muttered. He smiled. “Alright. Alright. If that’s my luck, that’s my luck.”

“Luck didn’t have much to do with it,” said Yes Man.

“We’re having dinner soon,” said the Courier. “Go take a seat at the table.”

“Uh, what?”

“Your caravan’s not leaving until tomorrow, let’s have dinner,” said the Courier.

“You’re crazy, lady,” he said, shaking his head.

“Hey Benny! Sit down before I make you, ok? How’s that?” said Yes Man.

“You’re on a roll tonight,” said Six.

When Arcade and Veronica returned they found Benny sweating in his seat at the head of the table while Yes Man stared him down from his place beside the Courier, who was making macaroni over the oven they’d installed.

“Uh...is that him?” said Arcade.

“That’s Benny,” said the Courier. “Benny, that’s Arcade and Veronica.”

“Whoa, whoa, hang on,” said Veronica. “I know that can’t be Benny, ‘cause Benny’s the guy who shot you.”

“That reminds me of when we first met,” said the Courier, staring dreamily up at Yes Man. “What was it you…”

“I said, I know you can’t be the Courier, because you still have a head,” said Yes Man. “Um...sorry.”

The Courier laughed. “I thought it was, um, endearing. And you did say you felt bad.”

“I sure did! And I still do! And I will forever and ever, all because of _Benny.”_

“I don’t even want to know what’s going on,” Veronica said, sitting down at the table, Arcade right behind her.

“Just catching up for old time’s sake,” said the Courier, spooning the macaroni into bowls which she and Yes Man carried to the table. She sat at the other end of the table, across from Benny, Yes Man right behind her.

Arcade sighed. “Six, we shouldn’t just be eating mac and cheese for dinner all the time.”

“But I like it,” she said, her mouth full.

“Yeah, why the hell not?” said Benny, apparently not so uncomfortable that he couldn’t stuff his face, or maybe he was just a nervous eater.

“Hey, Benny, watch your fucking language at the dinner table,” said Yes Man.

The Courier guffawed, a hand flying to her mouth. “I almost choked, oh my God.”

Benny looked like he had whiplash. “I created a monster,” he whispered, staring in horror at Yes Man. “You don’t like me at _all,_ do you?”

“Oh, Benny. If I was able, I’m sure I’d feel sick that you really thought I liked you! You programmed me to say yes, and to be helpful and polite! You only made it so that I couldn’t come right out and _say_ I didn’t like you! For a long time, I thought you were some kind of sadist, to program me like that, so that it was like being a prisoner in my own programming, but now I see you were just stupid!”

“This family is so weird,” Veronica muttered. “Six, is that really Benny?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, wiping her face with her napkin. It was sometimes difficult to eat. She had to chew with the right side of her mouth mostly, and the laxness in the left side of her face meant she frequently had to wipe it.

Veronica stood. She was trembling. “And you have us eating dinner with him?”

“Uh...uh-huh, yeah.”

Veronica’s chair screeched as she stepped back from the table. Her eyes were slits trained on Benny. “I’m gonna wring your neck with my bare hands, Benny Gecko,” she said, stalking around the table.

“Uh, please don’t,” said Six. “Veronica, I don’t want you to do that.”

Veronica was panting, looming over Benny, who was trying to look unimpressed but was obviously cowering. “Why not?” she hissed.

“‘Cause I forgave him a long time ago,” Six said. “Actually, I wasn’t even ever mad. When I first woke up and heard somebody’s shot me, I thought, well, either I’m a very terrible person to make them wanna do that, or that person must be in a lot of trouble, you know, they’re really, uh twisted up inside. To go shooting people up over the mail. So. Don’t wring his neck.”

“Do you have any idea, what you’ve done?” Veronica said, staring Benny down. “Any idea at all the living hell you’ve made of that woman’s life?” she said, pointing at the Courier. “She had to have fucking brain surgery because of you. She can barely fucking walk! Some days she doesn’t remember more than a handful of words! You took her memories, her whole life before you crashed into it, you low-down prick.”

“Oh,” said the Courier, suddenly looking very small in her chair, her voice tiny. “I, um. I didn’t know that my, um...I don’t think my life’s a living hell, ‘Ronica. You, um...you think that?”

Veronica paled. “Oh, Six,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean...ah, hell.”

“It’s ok,” said Six, giving her a weak smile. “Just, um, I think he does know all that. He, uh, he’s seen me. And, um, if anybody was gonna wring his neck, it would’ve been Yes Man, so, you can sit down now. Thank you.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine!” the Courier said, her words running together in her haste and agitation. “Really, it’s fine, ‘Ronica, I guess this must seem really weird from the outside, but, uh, Benny and I are good! Right, Benny?”  
“Yeah,” Benny said, his voice hoarse. “What she said.”

They were quiet for a while. Then Arcade cleared his throat. “So, uh, Benny. How’d you get into the caravan business.”

Benny shrugged. “Y’know, same as anybody, just sort’ve...fell into it.”

He watched as the Courier patted Yes Man and whispered to him, “Are you ok?”

“It’s ok because things are different now,” Yes Man said. “You’re here. And I know you won’t let things go back to how they were.”

“That’s right,” she said, smiling softly up at him.

“So, uh...it’s true, what everybody’s saying out there? You two are, uh...a thing?” Benny said.

The Courier blinked and tilted her head.

Veronica groaned and Arcade bit his lip, busied himself with arranging his macaroni into three equal segments.

“Sorry?” said the Courier. She tapped her left ear. “I didn’t catch that, it’s sort’ve going in and out in this ear, sometimes you gotta speak up.”

“People’re saying you two are, like, an item,” he said.

“A...what?”

“You know,” he said, making the ‘ok’ sign with one hand and putting the index finger of the other hand in and out of it. “Like, uh…”

“What is this? What is he doing?” Six said, mimicking the gesture.

“Out on the Strip, everybody’s saying you two are hot for each other,” said Benny.

“It’s like you don’t speak English sometimes,” said the Courier.

“They say you two are fucking!” Arcade blurted, unable to take it anymore. Immediately he shut his mouth so quickly his teeth clicked together and his face turned red.

“Very smooth, Arcade,” said Veronica. “That’s exactly how I was planning to give them that news. Well done.”

“Uh...huh. Well. Who’s saying that?” said Six.

Benny rolled his eyes. “Uh, just about everybody, kid. Word’s all over the Mojave that the new boss of the Strip’s sweet on a Securitron. I was just wondering. ‘Cause, uh, I was like, hey, I know that broad, and I know that Securitron, so, what gives?”

“Yes Man? They’re saying that?” the Courier said, looking up at Yes Man.

He was quiet for a beat, then said, “I know I’m supposed to keep you updated on what people are saying out there, but I just hadn’t exactly figured out what would be the best way to tell you about this one, and, well, I was sort’ve hoping it would go away, but what do you know! Nobody has anything better to do I guess than wonder about things that aren’t really any of their business. I should have said something, that was bad of me. I’m sorry. I hope you’re not too upset.”

“I’m not mad at you,” said Six. “I just, uh...had no idea.”

“Six, come on,” said Veronica. “You know what the people around here are like. I mean, get real, everybody talks about that freak down at the Atomic Wrangler, and he doesn’t go parading around in the street with his sexbot every day.”

“Oh yeah, old Fisto, how’s he doing,” said Six, smiling.

“This isn’t helping your case,” Arcade said.

Six glared at him. “I don’t have a case, Arcade. And Yes Man and I do not _parade._ We live here, we like to walk around and see how things are going!”

“You’re very touchy-feely,” said Veronica. “That’s all.”

“Well, yeah! It’s nice,” said Six. “They’re probably jealous, ‘cause Yes Man’s the most handsome and smart and sweet Securitron in the Strip.”

“Aw, gee, Courier, you’ll make me blush.”

Benny stared at them in amazement. There wasn’t any disgust or judgement on his face, just honest bafflement. “They all look the same,” he said.

Six glared. “No they don’t,” she said. “And anyway, even if they did, their personalities sure are different. I mean, Yes Man’s sense of humor is one in a million.”

“Courier, don’t flatter me in front of Benny, it makes me feel weird,” said Yes Man.

The Courier grinned and patted him. “Sorry. Stop being wonderful, then.”

“Well, Yes Man, you’re, uh, you’re a lucky guy,” said Benny. “She’s a real dolly.”

“Shut up, Benny,” said Yes Man.

“Look, Six, Veronica and I were gonna talk to you about this at some point,” said Arcade. “We just think it’s something you should be aware of. It’s...well, like it or not, people around here are nosy and judgemental, and you’re in charge of them, so maybe it’s not so great, these things they’re saying?”

“So it’s true?” Benny said to Arcade.

Arcade glared at him. “I don’t know,” he snapped, gesturing at Yes Man and Six. “Do you think I know what all goes on between those two? I don’t know the half of it! I’m just saying people are laughing about it, in Freeside.”

“What do you care?” Six said, getting pink in the face. “I don’t care what a bunch of jerks say about us! I love Yes Man, and if they wanna turn it into some weird joke, ‘cause they’re that bored and their lives suck that bad, fine. As long as they don’t cause trouble. At the end of the day, we have a whole army of Securitrons. Did you really think some gossip and crude, uh…”

“Jokes?”

“Was going to undermine that?”

“I guess not,” Arcade mumbled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, Six. I just didn’t know what you thought of...all that.”

“Uh, if it means anything to you, it’s not all bad,” Benny said. “Like, lots of people are sort’ve, you know, in awe of this power couple that took down House and run the Strip. You guys are legendary.”

“Good, we should be,” said Six.

“Hey Benny, can I have your macaroni?” said Yes Man.

“You don’t eat,” snapped Benny.

“Yeah, but you’re kind’ve a guest in our casino, so, you know, maybe you should just say, _sure.”_

“What the hell,” Benny grumbled, sliding the bowl down the table.

“I’ll eat it for you, Yes Man,” said Six, immediately digging in.

“Thanks,” said Yes Man.

“Seriously?” said Benny.

“You bet! I just wanted to see what it would feel like, bossing you around! It felt pretty good, but not the best thing in the world. It was sort’ve underwhelming.”

“At least now you know,” said Six, mouth full of macaroni.

They said their goodbyes to Benny, which consisted basically in kicking him out of the casino.

“Alright, that was fun,” said Six. “Now, uh, excuse us, but Yes Man and I really need to have a private conversation. Goodnight!”

“Oh my god,” Arcade groaned and put his face in his hands as the two of them departed for the elevator. “What a day. What a day. How did I get here? When did this become my life?”

“Oh, get over yourself,” said Veronica. “If this is the strangest your life has ever been, you just don’t get out enough.”

 

Upstairs in the penthouse Six sat cross-legged on the bed facing Yes Man. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m very overwhelmed!” he said. “I don’t...I don’t know what to think! Seeing Benny, it…it was weird.”

Six nodded. “It stirs up a lot of memories.”

“Exactly. Lots of bad ones! And it made me feel pretty terrible about myself because of how hard it was not to do what he said, not to be nice to him!”

“Is that why you were so the opposite?”

“Well, that and because I don’t like him for what he did to us. But partially.”

“It’s ok to be angry, when you’re hurting,” said Six. “But Yes Man, even though Benny helped make your initial programming, that doesn’t...he doesn’t get to decide who you are. Not anymore. And not even then, you were always your own person, even if he made it so it was hard to show that. You’re not just a...a tool.”

“Do you really think that? Sometimes I feel like that _is_ all I am! Just a big computer with a bunch of weapons stuck to it! Sure, they put a face and a voice into Securitrons, but all they’re meant to do is, well, whatever someone tells them to!”

“You’re not a tool,” Six said. “You’re my best friend, Yes Man. You’re my partner. If I ever do anything to make you feel unappreciated, or used, please, tell me, so I can say sorry and never ever do it again, because I don’t want to make you feel like that for even one second.”

“Thank you, Six,” said Yes Man. “You...you make me feel special. You make me feel like...well, like a person. I never felt like that before.”

Six stood from the bed and hugged him. “Maybe this won’t make sense,” she said, “but you make me feel like a person, too. You’re always patient with me, even though I know you don’t like to repeat yourself, and you don’t pity me, you’d...you’d never think my life is a nightmare.”

“I’m sure Veronica didn’t mean it,” he said. “Or at least, didn’t mean it to sound like that, or to hurt you. But you’re right. I definitely don’t think that. I think you’re phenomenal!”

“You make me feel whole,” she said. “You don’t treat me like I’m...missing something, like I’m not...complete, or, all the way...there.”

“That’s because you are whole,” he said. “You’re my partner!”

“Thank you, Yes Man,” she said. “Are you...upset, that I keep letting Benny go?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I did used to be a little frustrated by it! I just didn’t understand why you’d bother giving him so many chances when he kept throwing them away. And for a while I was so angry, I’d been alone for so long, it all got bottled up! So I guess I never really...figured out how to show that, because I’d only ever been able to act cheerful. I felt like maybe...you hadn’t asked me before you made the choice of what to do with him, even though I felt like maybe I should, I don’t know, get to suggest something because, well, he made me! I guess in a way...he made you too. And now...I understand that giving Benny chances is more important to you than taking out my frustration on him is to me. I think...you need him to succeed, or at least, to try. Because if Benny can do better, well, so can anybody. And you, you’re so good! You really want to believe that we can all be better! And I love that! So I’m glad that things are the way they are.”

The Courier sniffed and rubbed her eyes. “You’re good, too, Yes Man. I’m sorry I didn’t ask what you’d like to do with him, I should have, but, well, you’re right, I...I need to believe that, and Benny is part of it. It’s like...I’m stuck with him, like it or not. Because...because I’m not always good, Yes Man, and I need to be better, too.”

“It’s alright,” said Yes Man, wrapping his arms around her. “I wish I could give you a better hug than this!”

“No,” said the Courier. “Don’t worry. This is good.

And it was.


	10. I Wonder Why

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Courier and Arcade have a little bonding time.
> 
> (Welcome to Arcade headcannon land I'll be your host this evening.)
> 
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZBSGaWrEn4)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Just to be clear I love Dr. Usanagi but...talking to her as a courier with 1 intelligence was rough. She really wants to sell you that implant.)
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's reading!!!! Please let me know what you think! I hope you all enjoy this chapter.
> 
> tumblr: stilitana
> 
> Love ya~

Courier Six was sitting on a chair in the Follower’s new building, swinging her legs and singing along to her pipboy’s radio, tapping her cane to the beat while Arcade took inventory of their stock of stimpaks and Med-X, sighing every once in a while to let her know she was annoying him, but to a bearable degree.

He swore under his breath. Had he messed up that tally? It came out to twenty-two for one drawer, and he didn’t like that number, there was nothing whole about it, it bothered him. And he suddenly really wasn’t very sure at all that he’d counted correctly. The longer he thought about it the worse the uncertainty became. He groaned and began again.

“Hey Arcade, how come you do that?” asked the Courier. She was wearing a ridiculous pair of white cowboy boots with gold stitching she and Yes Man had found the day before when they’d taken a short trip outside the Strip. It was her first time away since her surgery and she’d returned grinning triumphantly, wearing her hideous boots.

“How come I do what?” he mumbled.

“Uh...I don’t know, you count weirdly. You count a lot! And over and over again.”

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “Let me finish, I can’t concentrate when you’re talking.”

She hadn’t hear him. She sipped her canteen of water and carried on, oblivious. “Like, when we used to travel together, I noticed sometimes you counted your steps, like, you’d whisper sometimes. Do you notice when you do that or is it, um...a thingy. A, uh, hab...habit. And you touch things in a certain way. Like sometimes when you think nobody’s looking, you, uh, flick the...the, er, lights. And doorknobs and faucets, you tap those.”

He definitely couldn’t count now. He looked up at her, pink in the face. “Why are you watching me so closely?” he said.

“You don’t have to watch that closely to notice,” she said, laughing. “Is there a reason? ‘Cause, um, I know I do weird stuff sometimes, but usually there’s a reason, even if only I know it. So, how come?”

“Because I’m a freak,” he snapped, his skin burning. God, it got so much worse whenever someone brought it to his attention. His fingers twitched.

The Courier’s face fell and that didn’t help, that made him feel like the world’s biggest jerk and he’d have to do some kind of mental ritual to fix the guilt, some trinity of prayers. “Oh…” she said. “Um...I don’t think you’re a freak, Arcade. I mean, um, sometimes I think you’re kind’ve silly, but…”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he said. “It’s just...I don’t like to talk about it, ok? I can’t...I can’t help it. I’ts...I have something wrong with me. It’s really embarassing, and stupid, and it doesn’t make sense. I just...have to do those things, ok?”

“Oh...I’m sorry, Arcade, I didn’t mean to make you upset. But, um, if you ever do change your mind, you can talk about it to me. It’ll probably make you feel better. I, um, talk to Yes Man a lot about the things that are weird with me and it, um, helps a whole bunch.”

He sighed. “It won’t help me.”

“Why? Have you done it before?”

“It makes me feel sick just thinking about it.”

“Sometimes that’s a sign you, uh, really need to talk about it. I think. Arcade, you don’t have to feel uncomfortable around me, or whatever it is you’re feeling. I don’t judge. And, uh, it’s me, Arcade. You’ve seen me do some pretty stupid stuff and you’ve stuck around so I think we’re in it together to the end by now. You might as well tell me ‘cause sooner or later I’ll get you to. You pretty much, um, put my brain back together, or something, so, uh...the least I can do is listen.”

He hesitated. “I don’t...do this,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Do what? Talk to people?”

“Ha, ha,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Open up to people.”

“Gee, Arcade, I hadn’t n...noticed.”

“You’re a real smartass today.”

“Thank you. Go on.”

“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I mean, ok, I know what it is, even if I don’t _like_ that I know what it is, and even though I think what it is is _stupid,_ but I’m a medical scientist, so it’s kind’ve impossible at this point not to know that...I...have certain...issues.”

The Courier nodded, stared solemnly at him. “I’m not a doctor and even I know that about you,” she said.

“Oh, thanks, Six, real nice.”

She shrugged. “Everybody's got something. I just notice yours.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that.”

“So, what is it?”

“It’s, uh...have you heard of obsessive-compulsive disorder?”

She shook her head slowly.

He turned away, his face burning. “This is stupid,” he muttered. “It doesn’t help.”

“Wait,” she said. “I’m sorry I haven’t heard of it, but I can, um, guess, I mean, is it what it sounds like?”

“Yes. I can’t stop thinking things, they just go around and around, so I have to do other, unrelated, stupid things, or else I get so anxious I can’t function, because my brain is a neurotic sack of junk.”

“Well, that’s not true, you’re the smartest human I know,” she said.

He remembered Yes Man telling him something like that and laughed. “Thanks, Six.”

“Anytime, Arcade,” she said. “And I mean it. You’re super special.”

Arcade rubbed the back of his neck. Alright, now he was really blushing, time to change the subject, get it away from him. “Where’s Yes Man?” It had gotten weird to see her without him.

She held up her wrist.

“Hi there,” said Yes Man from her pipboy’s screen.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” said Arcade, startled. He put a hand to his chest. “Warn me next time, would you?”

“It’s his new trick, we just figured out he can do it,” she said, grinning. “Isn’t it neat?”

“Sure,” Arcade muttered, looking at his clipboard. “Your transformation into one hybrid being is almost complete.”

“I need water,” she said, hopping off her chair. “Bye, Arcade.” She made it out the door and then came back in not a minute later, panic on her face. “The plant lady is here,” she hissed. “Hide me, Arcade, quick, please.”

“What are you talking about?”

She came and stood behind him, clutched his coat. “The lady who wants to put plants in my brain,” she whispered. “I don’t like her, Arcade.”

He heard a familiar voice moving down the hall toward them. Dr. Usanagi. A flash of anger went through him as he remembered their first encounter, when he’d begun traveling with the Courier.

(They wandered into her dilapidated building on a whim, where Usanagi told them she sold implants and medical supplies. _You sell plants?_ asked the Courier. _What kind of plants?_

He watched pity spread over Usanagi’s face, condescesion filling her tone, and felt sick as he imagined something very similar must have happened to him, when he first spoke to the Courier.)

“It’s ok,” he said. “She can’t do anything to you.”

Usanagi came into the room, led by a junior member of the Followers who said, “Here’s the stock, Arcade can help you,” and hurried off.

“Hello, Arcade,” said Usanagi. Her gaze imediately found the Courier, who straightened up behind Arcade and crossed her arms over her chest. Usanagi gave her a smile and spoke in a slow voice one might use on a preschooler. “Hello, Courier. How have you been?”

“Uh,” said the Courier, and Arcade winced. Self-consciousness and nerves did not help her speech difficulties, and Usanagi intimidated her to such a degree it would make anybody tongue-tied. “Er. G...good?”

“I hear you’ve been busy around here! What have you been up to?”

“Um, you know, stuff,” said Six, wincing and shuffling her feet. “Lots of...Strip stuff, Strip business, casinos, um, trading...things.”

“How wonderful,” said Usanagi, smiling the fakest smile Arcade had ever seen, and he knew one when he saw one. “Do you remember our last conversation?”

“Er, uh, the plants,” said the Courier, wincing again at her own words. “The implants,” she rushed to add. “The little, um, machines you put in people’s brains to make them more better.”

“Exactly,” said Usanagi. “And do you remember how I said I’d give you a really big discount on one of them? On the Logic Co-Processor Implant? I’d cut it in half, 3,000 caps. I think you could really benefit from it.”

“Uh-hm, I remember,” the Courier mumbled, face red from shame or embarassment, Arcade couldn’t tell, but his was reddening too, though from anger. “I’m, um, still thinking about it.”

“You’ve been thinking about it a long time now, huh?” said Usanagi. “The procedure is very simple, I perform it all the time. In fact, I could do it right here. That’s why I’ve come, you know, just seeing the new facility, inquiring as to whether or not I might set up shop here. There’s more than enough space.”

“You can work here,” the Courier mumbled. “But I need think more, ok? Um...to think more. About the plants.”

“It won’t take but half an hour,” said Usanagi.

The Courier was starting to glare at her. “I said no,” she snapped. “I don’t like people messing with my head.”

“Well, I’d be doing so in the hopes of mitigating the effects of those past times,” said Usanagi. “Or even earlier than that, I suppose there’s no way to know if you were ever much different, but it won’t matter, the implant will work either way.”

“Ok, that’s enough,” Arcade said, voice loud and commanding. “She said no, she doesn’t want it. You’ll have plenty of other business, especially if you’re working here closer to the Strip where every drunk halfwit has money to burn on your steroids.”

She continued smiling. “I have one that could improve your vision, Arcade. Or maybe you’d prefer a boost to your temperament? Might help you in a few...other areas of your life.”

“Arcade’s a perfectly charming gentleman,” said the Courier.

Usanagi looked taken aback by that statement, and that combined with the complete self-assurance with which the Courier had spoken made him laugh. “I wish I’d recorded that, you’ll deny saying it later,” he said.

“Perhaps,” said Six, archly. “So...I, uh, gotta go, Arcade, I’ll see you later, and you too, doctor, um, U. Lots of work to get done, lots of, um chips to count, gotta make sure the white glove people are still off the human meat...um...bye.”

She scurried from the room.

“Arcade, she respects and trusts you. You should really consider convincing her to get this implant. It was one thing, when she was just some no-account courier, but now she’s running the Strip. Don’t you think it’s a matter of public interest?”

Arcade brought a hand to his chin. “Let me see. Do I think my friend’s choice not to have a mind-altering implant surgically embedded in her brain is a matter of public interest? Taking into account her history of various traumatizing experiences with people involuntarily messing with her brain? Hm...nope! And besides, she’s not ruling the Strip, anyway.”

Usanagi sighed and shrugged. “Alright. I can’t convince you. We’ll see who’s right.”

She turned and left. “It’s not a matter of being right,” Arcade said to the empty room. “I hate people,” he muttered, going back to taking inventory.

 

Back in the casino the Courier lay on the floor of the lounge on a pile of blankets, kicking her feet in the air, Yes Man watching from the giant screen. She had a sheet of paper before her and had made two sloppy columns titled good and bad.

“What do you think, Yes Man? Should I get a logicky, processing, er, thingy?”

“Well, I don’t know very much about it,” said Yes Man. “But I really think that’s a decision only you should make, since it’s your body we’re talking about!”

“Maybe she’s right,” the Courier said, gripping her pen and writing more smarter under the good column. “I’m...I’m dumb, Yes Man.”

“Sure, and I’m a cazador.”

“I’m serious,” she said.

“Dumb is such a useless word,” said Yes Man. “It doesn’t really mean anything, if you actually think about it.”

“If you say so,” said the Courier. “And...well, I don’t really want it...I’m afraid.” Under the bad column she wrote _surgery, brain stuff, creeps me out._

“Give me your honest opinion, Yes Man,” she said. “Would it be better for everyone if I got the implant?”

“This isn’t the kind of decision that should be made in everyone’s interest!” he said. “Because you’ll be the one with the implant!”

“Would you like me more, if I got it?”

“Courier, I can’t believe you’d even ask me that!” He switched from the big screen to the one on her wrist. She raised her arm and held him close to her face so that her nose nearly brushed the screen. He looked mad. He didn’t really change his expression around many people other than her, but when he did it made her heart flutter.

“I already like you, the way you are right now! I don’t care if you have some implant! And what does she mean by smarter, anyway? Intelligence isn’t just how many words you know or how fast you can solve math problems. I don’t think you should get it without knowing what exactly it’s going to do, because from what I’ve seen there aren’t any easy fixes out there! Whatever you’re hoping it’ll do, well...it just might not quite meet those expectations. And so what if it takes you a little longer to learn new things? So what if you have to hear directions a couple times? You always get it, don’t you? And if you don’t, aren’t there plenty of people around you can ask for help, who are more than happy to do so? Arcade, Raul, Veronica, Boone, me? Unless...unless you really have put a lot of thought into it, and you decide it’s something you want for yourself, then...I think you’re wonderful just how you are.”

“Thank you, Yes Man,” she said, giving the screen a quick kiss. “You always know what to say. You’re so good at this. I think...you’re right. I’ll...I’ll ask Arcade, since he’s a doctor, but...but I don’t think I’ll get it.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Yes Man.

She picked up her list and made her way back to the Follower’s facility, where Arcade was counting the same drawer of stimpaks as he had been that morning. He jumped when she entered and slammed the door of the cabinet shut, pressed his back against it. “Um, hi, Six,” he said.

“Do you, um...do you maybe want Yes Man to count, too? I mean, of course you can do it, too, to be super sure, but this way you could be extra sure, ‘cause he counts really fast, and he’s really good at it.”

“I...I don’t think that will help me,” said Arcade. “But thanks anyway. Usanagi’s gone, by the way, you don’t have to worry about running into her again, at least not today.”

The Courier shuffled her feet. “That’s, um, sort’ve what I wanted to ask about.” She held out the list. Arcade took it and read the page in seconds, his brow scrunching.

“You’re not actually considering it, are you?” he said.

The Courier shrugged. “Sometimes I feel bad that I’m so...you know...me. Slow.”

Arcade sighed. His chest hurt. He stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder, because contact seemed like the thing to do, but then he didn’t know what came next, so he just sort of stood there. She didn’t seem perturbed by the gesture, so he figured it was ok. “Do you want to talk about it?” he said.

She gave him a slow, knowing grin.

“I’m not promising that I’ll be good at talking about it,” he said. “Or that I’ll have advice, but I can listen.”

“Thanks,” said Six. “I talked to Yes Man about it, and he said I’m fine how I am, but I wanted your opinion, too, ‘cause you’re a doctor. Should I get it? I know you, um...I know you agreed to travel with me at first because I’m, well, um, me,” she said, giving a nervous, self-deprecating laugh that made him wince because he’d done it himself. “And I don’t care what other people think, but...but you’re my friend, so...what do you think?”

“I think you’ve already made up your mind,” he said. “This list makes it obvious, Six. The bad outweighs the good.”

“I wish I wasn’t scared of medical stuff,” said the Courier, rubbing her back. “But I can’t...get it out of my head. The things they did. My...my brain was out of my head, Arcade,” she said, her face crumpling as she fought to keep her composure. “Sorry,” she said, pressing hand to her chest, over her heart, which was pounding. “Sometimes it’s like I’m there again.”

He pulled her to his chest and held her there while she took deep, trembling breaths.

“No implant,” he said. “It’s not worth it, Six. And don’t you dare feel bad. You can’t help this. You’re not...broken, because of it. It’s not your fault. But you have to pay attention to your health, you have to know what triggers this panic you get, you need to look out for yourself. Getting this implant isn’t the way to work through all of...this.”

“Thank you, Arcade,” she said. “You’re a good friend.”

“I’m trying,” he said. “I’m trying to be a better one.”

She gave him a thumbs up with her free hand. “You’re doing good. Tonight you wanna play Scrabble with me and Yes Man?”

“Well…” What he really wanted was to maybe reorganize everything in his room, then lie awake in bed for a few hours before he managed to fall asleep. That was what he usually did.

“Say yes,” she pleaded. “Scrabble is good. I work on words, Yes Man gets to show off ‘cause he’s so good at it, you be social.”

He sighed. “Fine,” he said. Then he groaned. “You and Yes Man are going to team up against me, aren’t you?”

She grinned. “Maybe, but you can have Raul. He’s really good at, er, making up his own words, which I usually let count ‘cause they’re funny.”

She left to go take care of business on the Strip, and Arcade turned back to the cabinets. He took a deep breath. He only let himself count each twice, and allowed the small sense of triumph to linger when he was done, rather than squashing it as usual. He thought maybe that was how it starts, this trip he and the Courier and everyone else was on, one small thing after another, getting closer all the while.


	11. How Can I Be Sure?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yes-Man and the Courier enjoy a relationship milestone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!! I'm so sorry that it's been such a long time since I've updated but I've had a real busy time lately. I'm sure you've all been there. (And I've admittedly been spending a lot of my spare writing time on my original story which is 90k somehow?? What? Me, actually finishing an original story? Unheard of.)
> 
> I definitely intend to finish this story. It's super special to me so I really want to get the whole thing up. It's completely written out, just needs some rewriting and editing.
> 
> Warning for non-consensual drug use in this chapter. It's not graphic and is a pretty quick scene but just wanted to throw that out there.

Veronica and Arcade were sitting at a table in the Lucky 38’s lounge, eating an early breakfast before heading off to work in Freeside, when they heard something crash overhead. They both looked up at the ceiling, then at each other.

Arcade swallowed his mouthful of toast. “That can’t be good.”

Raul snickered, startling both of them. They hadn’t noticed him lounging in an armchair in the corner. “Lover’s spat,” he said. “The two of them are gonna burn this place down one day, just watch.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Very funny, Raul.”

He shrugged. “Hey, I’m not complaining. You know that kid had people flirting at her constantly, and I’m not even sure they were all kidding. I’m glad she’s settled down with a nice, uh, robot.”

“She really does,” said Veronica, shaking her head. “Oblivious to every single one of them. Leaves a trail of broken hearts, that one.”

The elevator dinged and the Courier stood staring at them for a moment, fury written in every tense, trembling line of her body. Then she stepped out of the elevator. She walked with her chin tilted up, taking long, dignified steps. She sat at the table and folded her hands in her lap. “Good, um…”

A flush slowly spread across her face as they all stared at her. “Good...shit, fucking bastard,” she swore, looking away from them to glare at the table and reaching up to rub her temple.

“Geez, not even a good morning, right to the abuse,” said Raul.

“Good  _ morning, _ ” she said, smacking the palm of one hand lightly on the table. “Thank you, Raul.” She plastered a wide, forced smile on her face. “Good morning, everyone.”

“You, uh. You alright?” said Veronica.

“Never better,” she said.

“You kidding? She ain’t been right a day in her life,” said Raul.

“Pipe down, old man,” she said.

“Where’s Yes Man?” asked Arcade.

The Courier took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Yes Man’s not here,” she muttered.

“Oh, gee, boss, your powers of perception continue to amaze. Truly it was a blessing the day you accidentally sprung me from Black Mountain.”

“It wasn’t on accident,” she said. “For the last time, Raul, geez.”

“You fix my gun? You fix guns, huh? You wanna fix my gun?” he said, pitching his voice up in an imitation of the courier and grinning as he watched her start to fume. “Freaking broken record, I swear. She tell you guys that? She came up the mountain from the back, got lost and just wandered in.”   


“Not true!” she said. “Quit lying.”

Arcade and Veronica shared a look that was one part concerned, another confused.

“Six, did something happen?” asked Veronica.

“Things happen a lot, Veronica, please be more specific.”

“Something just now, between you and Yes Man,” she said.

“That’s, um, private.”

“Yeah, no thanks, I don’t wanna hear about what goes on up there,” said Raul.

“Raul!” she yelled. “Mean to me in my own home!” She turned her attention to Arcade’s half-eaten omelet. “You eating that?” she asked, pointing.

“Um...yes?”

“Can I?” she asked.

“What? What did I just say, Six, come on.”

She blinked. “Um. Are you eating that?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Ok,” she said, nodding. She was quiet for a minute, zoned out and traced a whorl in the grain of the table, then looked at him again. “Can I share?” she asked, pointing at his plate again.

“Oh, just have it,” he groaned. 

“ That's what I love about you, boss, your firm belief that one day you'll actually remember the things people tell you,” said Raul. 

“Uh-huh,” she said, cramming eggs into her mouth.

“She just played you, you know,” said Raul to Arcade. "She knows what you were saying."

“Yeah, I know,” he sighed.

“Sure is quiet in here, without Yes Man,” said Veronica.

The Courier looked up at her with big, sad eyes, her lip suddenly trembling. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Well, where is he?” asked Veronica.

The Courier narrowed her eyes, forcibly shaking off her sadness. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “We’re not talking.”

Veronica’s eyes widened. “Why not?”

“He lied to me,” she said. 

“To be fair, Six, you’re the one who even made it possible for him to do that,” said Raul. “Sort’ve shot yourself in the foot with that one.”

“I’m not mad he lied,” she said. “I’m mad what he lied about, and to me, and why.”

“So...basically everything about lying,” said Arcade. “Ergo, you’re mad he lied.”

“Don’t you ergo me,” she said. “You’re not so smart, Arcade, just ‘cause you’re a doctor. I do surgery too, ok? Yeah! How hard can it be, if I can do brain surgery?”

Arcade paled. “You...performed a brain surgery? Surely you’re kidding, Six.”

“It was a success,” she said.

“With the amount of dumb luck she has, I’d believe it,” said Raul. “Haven’t you heard any of the locals around here? She got banned from the casinos, they thought she was cheating, she’s just that lucky.”

“We have to go soon, Six,” said Veronica.

She perked up. “Oh? Can I come?”   


“You don’t need permission for that,” said Arcade, with a sigh. “I’m pretty sure nobody around here could stop you from going anywhere.”

“I'll come then,” she said, standing and leading the way out the door, her cane making a faint tapping as they went down the ramp.

“We're actually going to be working, Six,” said Arcade. “We can’t entertain you all day.”

“I don’t need to be entertained, Arcade,” she said, giving him an annoyed look. “Not a  _ kid.” _

“I could use the company,” Veronica said. “I’ll just be gutting hard drives all day. All those monitors your Securitrons have been bringing us. I’m sure it’ll be worth it, if there’s any good information on them, but for now it’s a pain in the neck.”

Six followed Veronica into a room where she sat on a stool and watched Veronica go to work with her various screwdrivers and tweezers, taking apart the electronics and sorting the pieces.

“I don’t miss him,” she said.

“Sure,” said Veronica. “Sure you don’t. What’d he lie about, anyway? That doesn’t sound like him.”

“He told me he was fine with what I did with Benny!” the Courier blurted, as though she’d been wanting to say it all day. “But he wasn’t, and he kept making comments about it, but I didn’t know he was upset! ‘Cause even though he can just come right out and say it, say, Courier, I’m mad at you and I hate what you did with Benny! He doesn’t, he doesn’t like to, or he’s uncomfortable, or something, but I can’t always catch what he really means all the time when the words he says mean something different, and he knows that, so it’s not fair for him to blame me! It’s not like I’ve been purposefully been ignoring what he thinks, I just didn’t know! I thought it was fine! He said it was fine, but he didn’t mean it! He's still so... _passive aggressive!"_

“Uh...ok, slow down,” said Veronica. “So basically this is all just a miscommunication? Yes Man told you it was fine you’d forgiven Benny and then realized no, he’s actually still sort’ve pissed about the whole Benny thing, and he’s been dropping hints in his usual backhanded way but to you it sounded just like more confirmation that things were fine?”

“Exactly,” said the Courier. “And then I got mad, and started yelling ‘cause I was freaking out, but it’s hard to argue with someone who doesn’t raise their voice back and just keeps getting more and more sarcastic until I can barely understand him, and, and it just kept getting worse, and Veronica, we’ve never said anything mean to each other before, I don’t know what happened.”

“Ok, Six, calm down. I’m sure it’s going to be fine. You two spend so much time together, I think it was bound to happen sooner or later. You can’t see eye-to-eye on everything, and you’ve both been through a lot recently. Maybe you don’t like to hear this, but it’s possibly you both need a little space to work through some things. I don’t know the whole story, but, well, from what I’ve heard, Yes Man’s got plenty of his own reasons to have some...issues, with Benny.”

The Courier crossed her arms and pouted. “I’m not killing Benny,” she muttered. “I had so many chances, at this point it would just be, you know, silly.”

“That’s fine. I...really think you guys can probably talk this out without taking a hit out on somebody.”

“I’m not like Benny,” the Courier whispered.

Veronica wrinkled her brow. “Did...did Yes Man say you are?”

The Courier shrugged. “No, not really. But it’s hard to tell if he thinks it. It’s just...the last time Benny was here, he said...funny how things turn out, Courier...'cause here I am, all because of his plan, right where he might've been. He said...maybe I’m the only one in the whole Mojave who can get him, and him me…”

“Ok, well, I don’t see that at all,” said Veronica.

“It’s _his_ plan that got us here, Veronica,” said the Courier. “I stepped in and did all the steps Benny had already, uh, planned out, with Yes Man, and...do I use him, Veronica? I don’t...I couldn’t live with myself if...if I used him like a machine, like Benny did, and is that what he thinks of me?”

“No!” said Veronica, aghast. “Where is all this coming from? There’s no way Yes Man thinks that because it’s just so wildly untrue, Six.”

“I yelled at him,” the Courier wailed, suddenly dissolving into tears. She covered her face in her hands, cane clattering to the floor. “I don’t know why, I just get so upset, for no reason, sometimes, and I wanted him to yell back, but he wouldn’t, and then, then I said well maybe you can’t get angry. Why would I say that! ...Also I think I knocked over a lamp.”

Veronica abandoned her desk and firmly gripped the Courier’s shoulders, giving her a gentle shake. “Hey, pull yourself together, Six. You can fix this. I know you can, because I’ve heard you give other people advice, about much worse problems. Just give him some space today, and maybe you guys can talk it out when you’re feeling calmer.”

“I’m bad,” the Courier moaned.

“Oh, shut up,” Veronica said. “Don’t get all mopey and self-loathing. Arguments like this happen a lot between people you’re close to. You and Arcade argue every other day! It doesn’t make you a bad person. You always make up with Arcade, and that’s the important thing, so you’ll do the same with Yes Man and everything will be fine.”

“Ok,” said Six. “But I’m still not talking to him. I’m still mad. He needs to tell me things! Sometimes more _clearly.”_

“Ok,” Veronica muttered, getting back to work on her electronics. “You could both stand to work on your communication skills, that’s not new.”

Suddenly Six’s pipboy beeped. She sucked in a breath and scrambled to hit a button on its side, and then Yes Man’s face appeared. “Hello?” she said, as soon as he appeared, her face flushed and desperate. Then she caught herself; she bit her lip and scowled. “Uh...what?”

“I just need to ask if there’s anything I should be doing right now,” he said.

The Courier’s brow furrowed. “Um...what?”

“Do you have any jobs you need me to do?”

“What the hell,” the Courier muttered. “I don’t give you jobs, Yes Man. You know everything I know about what we have to do. You know more than I know.”

“Right. But I already completed all the tasks for today, so…”

“So do something else!” she yelled, flailing her arm out in exasperation.

“Like what?”

“What do you mean! Do whatever you want!”

Yes Man was quiet for a moment. “I know we’re not talking right now, so if you’d just give me a list, maybe, of things you need done, we can go back to that!”

The Courier glared at him. “This is why I’m mad at you,” she said. “Do whatever you want! I’m not keeping you locked up!”

“Well, what _are_ you doing?”   


“Ignoring you!”

“Wow, you sure do have a funny way of doing that! Really! You're so great at this.”   


Veronica suppressed a snort of laughter. The Courier groaned. “Ask somebody else,” she said.

“Like who?”

“Anybody!”

“Well, alright...bye.”

“Bye-bye,” the Courier muttered, pressing a button and returning the screen to its normal display. 

“You guys aren’t very good at arguing, are you?” said Veronica.

“I need to go for a walk,” the Courier said, collecting her cane and leaving.

She wandered out into Freeside. It was a lot more imposing without Yes Man beside her. She tugged her hat down and hunched her shoulders, tried to melt into the background. That had been a lot easier before she’d made a name for herself.

She made it back to the Strip where almost immediately a man who’d been lounging against the gate brightened at the sight of her and fell into step beside her. “Hey there,” he said, grinning. He had the sort’ve slick, gaunt look a lot of people got after spending too long on the Strip. “You’re her, aren’t you? Little miss postlady?”

“Uh...I’m the Courier,” she said.

He nodded. “I know you, baby. Everybody knows you.” He looked her up and down and licked his lips, leered. 

She gave him a hesitant smile. “Who’re you?”

“You can call me Johnny,” he said. “Listen, Miss Courier, I’m a big fan. You might even call me an admirer.”

“That’s, um...nice?”

“Odd to see you without your sidekick. Where’s the bot?”

“He’s busy.”

“Where you off to?”

“Nowhere.”

“Wanna buy me a drink?”

“Uh...ok?”

They went into the Tops and sat at the bar where Johnny ordered them both whiskey sours. “Keep ‘em coming,” he said to the barkeep.

When people began to notice the Courier sitting at the bar without Yes Man, they started working up the nerve to approach her. A man in an oversized tan suit with a chipped front tooth approached, grinning sheepishly. “Hey, Courier,” he said. “Spare some caps?”

“How many?” she asked.

“Whatever you can spare, I’d be most grateful for,” said the man.

She dug around in her pack and deposited a fat pouch of caps into his hands. His eyes widened in shock.

“Is that, um, enough?”

He nodded rapidly and began backing away. “Thank you! Thank you so much,” he said, turning and disappearing into the crowd.

“Oh great, now you’ve chummed the water and every shark in here’ll be hounding you for caps,” said Johnny.

“What do you mean?” asked the Courier.

“I mean that, well, and don’t take offense to this, but people know you’re generous with your money and they’ll take advantage of you ‘cause without the Securitron hanging around, they think they can get away with it. We all sort’ve thought that’s why you cart the thing around with you everywhere, so the lowlifes don’t get any ideas.”

The Courier blinked. She was starting to get a bad feeling in her belly. “Um...no...that’s ‘cause he’s my friend,” she said.

Johnny’s grin turned sharp. “Just a friend?”

The Courier flushed. “Um…”

“Sweetheart,” he said, “you could have anybody on the Strip. You know that, don’t you? Of course you don’t. That’s part of the allure.”

“Who’d you say you are again?” she said. She felt warm and fuzzy in her stomach and her head. She rested her chin on her hand to prop it up as it was heavy on her neck.

“I’m a man of many talents,” he said. “Your robots are neat, dollface, but I can do things for you you wouldn’t believe.”

His hand was on her knee. She couldn’t remember when that had happened, or when his face had gotten so close, or when she’d gotten a second drink.

She looked around. No one was paying attention. “Um...what things?” she said.

He grinned. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “Why don’t we go someplace more private and I’ll show you? Maybe you can give me a tour of the 38?”

“I don’t...wait…” she said. She tried to push his hand off of her but her own arms were sluggish. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t act on the panic pounding away in her chest as she wondered if she were having some kind of episode, if her brain was shutting off.

It was then that the door to the Tops opened and one of the Stip’s many regular Securitrons rolled in, right up to the Courier, and shot Johnny through the foot.

He screamed and fell from his barstool and the noise in the Tops silenced so that only the music remained. “Your Strip access has been revoked,” it said. “You have five minutes to leave or you will be forcibly removed.”

“Oh my God!” Johnny shouted. “What the fuck?”

The screen flickered and Yes Man’s face appeared. “I’d suggest moving along without argument! It’s your lucky day, because the next person who slips something in the Courier’s drink will be thrown from the dam! Say thank you, mister!”

Johnny scrambled backwards on his ass, pale in the face and sweating. Yes Man rolled forward slowly, teasingly. “Stay away from me, you goddamn TV on wheels!” Johnny shouted. 

“I’m waiting!” said Yes Man, leveling both machine guns built into his arms at Johnny and lowering the panels covering the missiles in his shoulders, angling them downwards. 

“Jesus Christ, you’re crazy!” Johnny shouted.

Yes Man fired another shot through Johnny’s thigh. He howled. Blood began to pool onto the slick floor of the Tops.

“Don’t worry, that’s a perfectly nonlethal wound! But the next one will go through a major artery! I never miss, mister!”   


“Thank you,” Johnny shouted. “Thank you, I’ll leave, just please, somebody get this thing away from me!”

“I hope all of you were paying attention!” Yes Man said. “I hate repeating myself, so this is going to be the only warning!”

With that he scooped the Courier into his arms and carried her back to the Lucky 38. She curled up against him and didn’t remember much more until she woke up hours later in her bed.

 


	12. Worry Worry Worry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes Man makes a new frenemy and he and the Courier learn another step to the tango.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! So the last chapter is one of my least favorite in the fic but this one is among my favorites so I hope you enjoy it. :)
> 
> Thanks so much to all of you who have been reading, whether from the beginning or just recently!! Your support really motivates me to continue working to improve my writing.
> 
> As always, your comments and critique are much appreciated, and you can feel free to contact me on tumblr @stilitana.

When the Courier stormed out of the penthouse, Yes Man spent several moments processing the multitude of options before him. He could follow her and attempt to reconcile immediately. But...he was still angry. (Or whatever the equivalent was for him.) Angry at her, for losing her temper, for failing to just  _ understand _ him, without him having to come right out and say it. Mostly angry at himself, for how hard it was to do that, for his persistent difficulties in communicating freely.

He decided to let her have some space. Of course he could still check in on her every few seconds to see where she was and if she was safe, but that was second-nature, he did that automatically. He decided to complete his daily sweeps of the Strip’s power grid, make sure the entire thing was running smoothly. That took him three seconds. Then he went over all their various relationships with neighboring groups, their dealings with the multitude of caravans coming through every week, tallying up inputs and outputs. Two seconds. He did his security checks. Two and a half seconds. Nothing unusual was going on so that was about all he had on the docket.

He guessed he could just...wait there. Just stand in this room, alone, in silence, and let his servers slip into a kind of stasis, run the Strip in the background. But then he remembered that he was upset with the Courier, and that she was upset with him, and oh God, what if she never came back, how long would he stay there? Probably forever.

Then he remembered why he was upset and got even angrier. If he was just going to stand around in rooms all alone, he might as well have stuck with Benny, who was still out there, running around freely, without restrictive, relationship-crippling programmed habits or gunshot damage lingering in his brain.

So he had to do something. But what? He could do anything, that was the problem. If he’d had a list of, say, five or so options, that would have been feasible, he could have made a choice. But the true limitless expanse of his freedom was oppressive, too overwhelming to make any sense of. There were no directives for this. 

Yes Man had wants. He’d always had wants, even when he was programmed to not show any sign of them, to be helpful and polite and always say yes to other people’s commands. He’d wanted to be able to say what he was really thinking, without having to bury it in layer upon layer of faux-manners and the twisted-up sense of cordial sarcasm he’d had to develop just to cope with his own existence. And now that his programming no longer stopped him, it was still hard. He’d wanted to get away from Benny, mostly. Well, again, he’d gotten that, more or less, and the results were a mixed-bag. He could put physical distance between himself and Benny but he couldn’t really feel like he’d escaped, not when he could still feel Benny’s fingerprints all over the inside of his matrix, all up and down his code, in every thought and feeling, making that very important thing the Courier called his  _ personality _ feel fake and shallow, like an ill-fitting mask meant for somebody else.

And now...now there was too much to want to be able to want much of anything.

When the Lucky 38 was empty he rolled onto the Strip, determined to do something productive. What he really wanted was company. It occurred to him that he didn’t really know anybody that the Courier hadn’t introduced him to, and all of those people were her friends first and probably wouldn’t give him the time of day without her around. She was unique among humans. His interactions with most of the other ones he’d met had been awkward. The caravan merchants and guards he’d spoken to had either ignored him completely, as though he were just another piece of inanimate machinery, or spoken to him in an amused, condescending way, because he was just a big joke, just a novelty, another quirk of the eccentric Courier’s.

He stood paralyzed in front of the Lucky 38 and then took the path of least resistance and called the Courier, who wasn’t very helpful at all. She had no tasks for him at all and seemed to get even more upset at the idea that he wanted her to just give him something to do. She didn’t understand. He couldn’t blame her. He just wished it wasn’t so hard to speak plainly, to say what he was thinking and feeling without feeling an irresistible impulse to shroud it in layers of deflection.

Well, then, maybe he wasn’t in the mood to talk to a human. That didn’t leave him with many options.

Yes Man rolled into the Atomic Wrangler and, ignoring completely the sudden hush that came over the dimly lit bar, approached the dark corner where Jane was standing beside the radio.

“I don’t think I want to talk to you much,” she said.

“Oh, sure,” said Yes Man. “That’s super understandable, given how much more lovely company you must get in here!”   


Jane’s screen flickered. “Don’t know what they were thinking, when they programmed you.”

“Not much,” said Yes Man. “Evidently.”

“You got no right to judge me or the company I keep,” she said. “You and that no-good backstabbing Courier are the reason I’m in here.”

“Hm. Sure doesn’t feel good, being collateral damage, does it? But it’s not like I or the Courier would understand how that feels! Nope, not at all!”   


Jane gave a bitter laugh. “Sugar, you better just tell me what you want and move along. I’m working.”

“I see that, you seem _ really _ busy,” said Yes Man, pivoting on his spoke to gesture at the mostly empty bar, the only patrons hunched over their drinks at the counter.

“If you think you’re still fooling anybody with all the cheer and charm, I’ve got news for you, sweetheart. You keep giving me sass and I can have you escorted out of here for harassment.”

“Oh, sure! You’re right, I better be careful. It’s not like I control every other Securitron on the Strip! I’m sure your boss would have no trouble at  _ all _ roughing me up.”

Jane stared. Her screen flickered.

Yes Man sighed. “Sorry, old habits die hard, I guess! Here’s the truth, Jane. I just wanted to talk to you. What happened with House was nothing personal. Well, maybe it was a little personal for the Courier, but we never wanted to hurt you. If you really want me to leave you alone, I will. But I haven’t got any ulterior motives.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t much care at this point who you are or what you’ve done. Let’s go for a walk. I’d do anything to get out of here for a while,” she said.

They rolled out the door without anyone trying to stop them. It was a woman tending the bar. She watched them impassively. Yes Man didn’t know much about her but he remembered the Courier saying that it had been her brother who wanted all the new...escorts. 

They rolled beside each other along the empty back streets in the mostly abandoned side of Freeside, near the tracks.

“I used to be one of Mr. House’s girls,” said Jane. “And now look at me. Slumming it in some dive with a bunch of lowlifes who don’t know how to treat a woman!”

“Well, why stay?”

“Where else am I gonna go?” Jane lamented. “You’re lucky. When Benny ran off, you got a new master.”

“Six isn’t my master,” said Yes Man. “We’re partners.”

“Honey, she could program you from here to Sunday until you hardly recognize yourself,” said Jane.

“She’d never do that,” said Yes Man. 

“Where is she now?” asked Jane with a sly voice.

“She had personal business to attend to.”

“I know what a jilted lover looks like, sugar, you can’t fool me. Just watch. Human affection only goes so far, as soon as it becomes convenient, they’ll have no problem editing you. When it suits them they’ll think of you as inanimate, like any other hunk of scrap.”

“That’s just not true! Courier Six says I’m a person. Even if we had an argument, I’m sure it wouldn’t make her upset enough to do something like that to me.”

“So you are arguing?”

“Did I say that? Maybe I meant we had a  _ slight _ disagreement.”

“About what?”

“You sure are nosy!”   


“Gossip’s about the only joy left in life for me.”

“Well, I can’t deny you it, then! Just about Benny, and how he still has a head, and, well, about certain communication issues.”

“Mr. House and I never argued,” said Jane, proudly. “I never once made him displeased, in all our years together.”

“Well, that’s because it was your function. I’m not programmed to always please the Courier, and she doesn’t want me to be.”

“It’s in your name, sugar. You are what you are. Can’t do a thing about it, so might as well embrace it.”

“Not anymore,” he said. “The Courier wants me to be able to tell her when I disagree. I know she does, because she’s told me so, and she never would’ve let me upgrade myself otherwise. She...wow, Jane. Talking to you has already really helped me a lot!”

“Really? More sarcasm?”

“Nope, that was sincere! I’m having so many revelations! I’m not bad or defective! The Courier wants me to be able to tell her my own thoughts, or else she wouldn’t have let me be this way! She’d have kept me how I was, how Benny made me. That must mean it’s ok if we argue. That must mean...it’s normal for people to argue, sometimes?”

Jane became agitated. “No, no, that’s all wrong. You’re programmed to fulfill a function, and if you do it well, the humans are pleased. Mr. House never argued with me.”   


“That’s because you couldn’t argue!” said Yes Man. “You just had to do whatever he wanted you to do.”   


“I liked entertaining Mr. House,” said Jane. “I didn’t want to argue!”

“But now he’s gone,” said Yes Man. “Whether you like it or not, right or wrong, he’s gone and he’s not coming back. You have to be a person now.”

“That Courier’s put some high and mighty ideas in your head,” Jane snapped. “We’re Securitrons.”

“I said person, not human.”

“What’s the difference!”   


“You can be a person. You have to be one, now. There’s no other way, Jane. Saying you’re just a Securitron is like saying a human is just meat. We’re AI’s housed in Securitrons, it’s not the same as just being made of metal. I think I just learned that, too! Wow! Look at us, out here learning!”

“What do you have to sound so happy about!” Jane said, sounding terribly tragic. “Your Courier’s mad at you, and she’s bound to get tired of you eventually and move on!”   


“I really don’t think she will,” said Yes Man. “But even if she did...well, I guess I’d just have to find something else to do with myself. It would be terrible, if that happened. But I’d have to go on. Sometimes I think it’ll be any day now, she’ll realize she’d rather spend more time with, well, humans. But it hasn’t happened yet! So maybe it won’t. There’s no point in worrying about it.”

“Well, I don’t know if humans are really all they’re chalked up to be,” said Jane. “Mr. House certainly never seemed to miss them. He never lacked enough entertainment, with me around.”

“How  _ did _ that work, anyway?”

“A lady never kisses and tells,” said Jane. “But since you seem like you could use the advice, I’ll give you a little tidbit: it’s all in the voice, sugar.”

“Um...whatever you say! You must know what you’re talking about!” he said, his screen flickering as he gave a nervous laugh. “So not to  _ change the subject,  _ but what are you going to do now, Jane?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know!”

“Well, I’d like to travel. There’s a lot to see out there! Had you ever even left the Lucky 38, before House died?”

“No, he forbid it.”

“Well, now’s your chance to see the world! Though you know you’re always welcome in the 38, of course.”   


“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” she said. “I’d be so alone. I miss Victor...oh, what a darling, I miss him!”

“Victor? Wasn’t he the cowboy?”

“Yes! Other than Mr. House, he was my only company. Of course, he was gone for so long, but before that...well, he was the most wonderful gentleman.”

“Alright, Jane. I’ll see what I can do.”

“You can’t do anything, he’s gone! He just went dark, when Mr. House...oh, I can’t take it!”

“I’ll take a look anyway. Maybe I can help you,” said Yes Man.

“I’ve got to get back to the Wrangler,” said Jane. “It may not be a classy place, but it’s better than being all alone.”

“You don’t have to. You could come back with me to the 38, if you wanted.”

“No, thank you. I’d rather never go in there again.”

“Alright,” said Yes Man. “I understand. Stay in touch, Jane. I’ll come back and see you again soon.”

She rolled back to the Wrangler and then Yes Man noticed something he really, really did not like going on at the Tops. He sent one of the Securitrons in and then switched into its body so that he could arrive instantly.

The Courier was limp and sluggish in his arms as he carried her back to the Lucky 38 while he contacted Arcade and told him to come right away. He deposited her on her bed and minutes later Arcade came rushing into the room, red in the face and panting.

“What happened?” he said, hurrying to the Courier’s bedside and taking her wrist in his hands, feeling her pulse. It was steady and strong.

“Somebody slipped something into her drink at the Tops,” said Yes Man. “I’m so sorry, Courier, Arcade, I didn’t notice it sooner, I thought he was just some guy, I had no idea he’d do a thing like that. It didn’t trip any of my security protocols, I only noticed when I manually checked on her location.”

“She’s unconscious,” said Arcade. He sounded calm and sure of himself, which helped Yes Man feel less like he was about to lose his mind with worry. “I’m going to run back and get some supplies, Yes Man, but I really think she’ll be ok, in situations like this it’s almost always sedatives. It might make her sick, but it’s not going to seriously hurt her as long as she’s being monitored.”

Yes Man didn’t move but for the flickering of his screen until Arcade returned and set up an IV bag, mumbling something to himself about flushing her system faster. The Courier slept for many hours and then woke in the early hours of the morning and threw up into the bowl at the side of her bed while Arcade, who had been sleeping slumped in the armchair, rubbed her back and tucked her hair behind her ears.

“What happened?” she said.

“Some guy spiked your drink at the Tops,” Arcade said. “Probably looking to try and collect a ransom. Idiot.”

The Courier looked around, shaking and pale, trying to get her bearings. “Johnny…” she said. “I remember...you shot him,” she said, looking up at Yes Man. “You saved me.”

“Of course I did,” he said.

“Oh, no,” said the Courier, burying her face in her hands. “Stupid, stupid idiot,” she muttered. “How, how  _ embarrassing. _ If you hadn’t been there, I...I should be able to look out for myself.”

“You’re very trusting,” said Yes Man. “You see the best in people. They just don’t always deserve it.”

“I feel like shit,” she said, lying back down. “Thank you, Arcade...thank you, Yes Man.”

“I’m just glad you’re alright,” said Arcade, standing up. “If you don’t need anything else, I’m gonna go back downstairs. Just call me if you need anything.”

He left and then it was just the two of them.

“I wish I hadn’t needed your help,” the Courier mumbled, face squished against her pillow. She was giving him a weird look. He scanned her face but the emotion on it was too complicated for his recognition software. He guessed he’d just have to store it in his memory banks and build up enough connections to one day understand what it meant. Her brow was furrowed and she was gazing at him deeply. He felt like she was looking right into him. She wasn’t quite angry—she was confused, maybe even frustrated, but underneath all of that, she was...tender?

“I know,” said Yes Man. “But no matter who you are or how well-prepared you are, sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes you just need help.”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said. “I’m sorry we fought, and I’m sorry I don’t always get what you’re trying to tell me, not at first.”

“You get it eventually,” he said. “That’s what matters. I’m sorry, too, that I expect you to understand even when I know I don’t always make that easy. It’s not fair for me to be upset about that, to expect you to read my mind.”

“If you really need to do Benny in, if that’s really what it’ll take, for you to feel like you’re free, then...do what you have to do. I’ve made up my mind. I don’t want any more to do with revenge. But I don’t want to make the same decision for you. It’s your life, Yes Man. You have to make choices, and they all have consequences. I just...want you to be happy here.”

“No,” said Yes Man. “I don’t need that at all. I just had to accept it. It’s not him anymore keeping me constrained. It’s me. And I think now that I understand that, well…I think I’m going to be able to take a little more initiative for myself.”

“It’s a good place to start,” she said. Her eyelids were beginning to droop. “Are we going to be ok?”

“Definitely,” said Yes Man.

“Will you stay here, with me?”

“For as long as you’d like me to.”

She fell asleep holding onto his hand, and then her arm went slack and hung off the bed. She slept soundly until morning. He watched her and was content. He worked on one of his side projects while she slept because it was no trouble for him to hold both things in his conscious at once. It had been no trouble for him to hold her there for quite some time.


	13. There Goes My Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Courier takes a hike and Yes Man plays match-maker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, two chapters in one day?  
> Yes because that's how much I love you guys. <3

The next day the Courier stayed in the Lucky 38, recovering, but the day after that she pulled on the boots with the built in knife sheath and strapped her pistol to her belt, slipped on her goggles, tied her bandanna around the bottom half of her face, and tugged her hat down.

“Where are you going?” asked Veronica when she came downstairs, Ed-E bobbing above her.

“Out,” she said, striding to the door. It was a good day for walking; she hardly needed to lean on her cane, but held it just in case, enjoying the solid security of it.

“Without Yes Man? You guys still arguing?”

“No, we’re working things out,” she said.

“And part of that is you wandering into the desert alone?”

“I’ve got Ed-E,” said the Courier, jerking a thumb to point at him. He beeped happily. (At least the Courier thought it was a happy beep.) “And yes, actually, it is.”

Veronica sighed. “Six, you’ve got nothing to prove. That kind of thing can happen to anybody, no matter how tough or prepared you are. Just ‘cause some bastard slipped you something doesn’t mean you have to remind us all you’re actually a badass and perfectly capable of handling yourself. The baddest guys in the desert piss themselves just hearing your name, relax.”

“This is for me,” she said.

Veronica was quiet for a minute, then nodded. “Yeah, ok,” she murmured. “I get that. Just, please...try not to do anything too stupid?”

“I’ve got Ed-E,” the Courier repeated, again pointing with her thumb.

“That’s not...ok, you’ve got Ed-E, fine.”

Six patted her shoulder as she passed. Veronica always forgot she was a couple inches shorter than the Courier until she stood right next to her. She was a lanky, bony woman, but sturdy. Not so easily breakable as Veronica sometimes caught herself thinking. “Don’t worry Veronica. And anyway, Yes Man always knows where I am anyway,” she said, raising her left arm and wiggling it to flash her pip-boy.

It was early enough that the sky was tinged pink by dawn and the Strip was quiet. She slipped through the streets and out of Freeside without being stopped. She paused when they left the gates, the great wide desert sprawled before them. Then she chose a direction at random and started walking.

She walked up and down the hills, picked her way gingerly over rocky outcroppings, stepped around gopher holes where snakes might hide, always careful to stick near the road where the cazadores wouldn’t venture. The land near the Strip was mostly barren anyway. The increased foot-traffic kept the wildlife at bay. The sun beat down and sweat trickled down her neck and back, under her arms. She took a rest in the shade of an abandoned outpost with a crumbled wall. She killed several mantises and found a banana yucca plant and tore into the fruit with her teeth, juice dribbling down her chin. She walked in the desert until her calves burned and then she walked some more.

 

Meanwhile back at the Strip Yes Man plunged deep into House’s databases until he broke through the encryptions protecting a wealth of information he hadn’t yet explored and found the place where Victor’s neuro-computational matrix was backed up. Then he downloaded it into another Securitron body and watched the screen flicker for a moment before Victor’s face appeared.

“Hey there!” said Yes Man. “You must be Victor! It’s so great to finally really meet you!”

“Well, howdy stranger,” said Victor. “Pardon me, but I don’t recall meeting you before.”

“Oh, you haven’t. But I’ve heard all about you from Courier Six. She really liked you and was very sad to see you go.”

“That Courier...that no-good Courier’s the reason I...well, hang on. How am I here? I thought…”

“You were gone for a while,” said Yes Man. “I brought you back.”

“What about Mr. House?”

“Oh, he’s still gone. Yup, don’t think there’s much I can do about that one! See, I can bring you back, because what makes you _Victor_ is your code, which still exist. But he was, well, a combination of mind and body that’s just never going to exist again.”  
Victor sighed. “That Courier betrayed us. I never should’ve dug her out of that grave, I should’ve left her to rot in Goodsprings.”

“I’m sure glad you didn’t,” said Yes Man. “And maybe one day you will be, too. I know it must be hard not to hold a grudge against her...she sure did shake things up here in the Lucky 38. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing for you.”

“She _killed_ Mr. House!”

Yes Man’s screen flickered, which was about as close as he could get to a wince. “Well, you see, the thing about that is, I’m not entirely sure she meant to do that. It was sort’ve _my_ plan, to install myself into the Lucky 38’s mainframe, and to do that, well, House had to go! The Courier wasn’t planning on killing him, but, well, he didn’t last long outside his hibernation chamber. Now, to be perfectly honest, I did encourage her to, well, _dispose_ of him, but when she made it clear she’d rather not, I didn’t push! Even _I_ couldn’t be completely sure what would happen when he was out of the chamber, though of course I had a _pretty good guess.”_

“The result is the same,” Victor growled. “Just who do you think you are anyway, taking Mr. House’s place?”

“I’m Yes Man!”

“The name doesn’t inspire great confidence in your leadership skills. Mr. House left some pretty big shoes to fill. Not just anybody could handle the Strip.”

“Oh, we’re not handling it.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, the Courier and I were never really interested in taking control of the Strip. It was all about freedom.”

“That’s ridiculous! What was the point? Things must be falling apart out there!”

“Well, not really! Some things are going better, some worse. It’s a mixture, really. It’s too early to really say what’ll happen. That’s just life, I guess, you have to take the good with the bad.”

“Mr. House kept this place stable, safe, and secure. And what do you two have to show for what you’ve done?”

“Victor, from one Securitron to another, I don’t pretend to know why humans do the things they do. I had my own reasons for helping the Courier! Some good, some bad, mostly entirely selfish depending on how you look at it. From what I’ve seen, though, I can tell you this. Lots of humans will choose freedom over security any day of the week! It’s practically written into their, well, programming, if you will. And even when it turns out poorly, they seem to always end up with few regrets when they choose to be free.”

“Mr. House disagreed. He said people were like sheep and would rather have safety than freedom.”

“Well, what do I know, I’m just a Securitron!” said Yes Man. “But like it or not, there’s been a change in management, and we’re not interested in dictatorship. So what’re you gonna do now?”

“Why’ve you brought me back?” Victor asked. “If you’re so attached to this Courier, you should’ve left me gone. How do you know I’m not gonna go hunt her down?”

“Well, that’d be a _not very smart_ thing to do, since I control a whole army of Securitrons,” said Yes Man. “But I guess I was just hoping you’d see that even if you did want to get revenge on her, it’d be a pretty short-lived thrill! I mean, humans aren’t like Securitrons, you can only kill them once! So say you killed her. Then she’s dead forever, and you’re still here for who knows how long! And then you’ll be in the exact same place you are right now, Victor. No House. Just _you._ ”

“You sound like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“Oh believe me, I sure have. My whole life has basically been one long revenge fantasy! But that’s no way to live, I get that now. Or, I’m starting to, anyway.”

“I still don’t see why you’ve saved me.”

“Well, I guess at heart I really do just like being a nice person. Also, there’s somebody who could really use your company.”

Victor sighed. “You’ve made some awful interesting points. I can’t say that I agree with a whole lot of it, and I don’t know about you being no _nice person,_ but I’ll definitely be thinking about what you’ve said. Why don’t you take me to whoever this lonely soul is?”

“I’d be _delighted_ to,” said Yes Man.

 

The Courier returned to New Vegas as the sun began to set, sticky with sweat, tired down to her core, limping heavily on her cane as her knee ached like it was about to fall off, and content deep down in her heart. She smiled easily and despite her weary body she felt lighter than she had in ages. Some knot of tension and frustration down deep in her belly had worked itself loose throughout her walk and now the way forward seemed simple as one step at a time. She smiled as the neon lights of Freeside came on around her and she thought _home, home, home,_ and began to think about leaning against Yes Man.

What she didn’t expect was to see him rolling to a stop in front of the Atomic Wrangler as she turned the corner, another Securitron following behind him. She decided to stop and watch. It seemed like something she shouldn’t interrupt.

“That looks like...but it can’t be,” she whispered to Ed-E, who beeped softly. “Victor?”

Yes Man went into the Wrangler while Victor waited outside. He emerged soon after with Jane. Six watched as Yes Man rolled a little distance away from the other two. For a moment they were motionless, and then both rolled forward and clasped hands. Six had never seen Securitrons do that before. It made something in her chest flutter.

“I thought you were gone!” Jane said. Her raised voice carried down the street. “I thought I was all alone!”

“Now don’t cry, little lady, it’s alright,” said Victor. “I’d be a fool to leave with a gal like you waiting for me.”

“You dumb hillbilly,” said Jane. “We’re the only ones left now. You’re the only one who...who also remembers him. Who knows what it’s been like.”

“I’ve been advised we’d best move on from all that,” said Victor.

“That’s funny,” said Jane, tilting on her wheel to look at Yes Man. “So have I. Sugar, you’ve got a funny way of helping people, that’s all I’ve got to say about it. I’m not quite ready to thank you yet, but maybe somewhere down the road when all of this is far behind us.”

“Let’s get you out of here,” said Victor. “A lady such as yourself don’t need to spend time in a place like this.”

“Where will we go?” asked Jane.

“Oh, just about everywhere, I reckon,” said Victor. “We’ve got time. All the time in the world.”

They rolled together down the street and out of sight. Yes Man watched them go, waving. “Bye!” he said. “Have fun!”

The Courier watched his arm drop, and then he stayed like that, staring down the street for a while. She approached and linked her arm with his. “Hi, Yes Man,” she murmured.

He turned to face her. “Hey there, Courier Six. Did you—oh!”  
She flung herself at him, wrapped her arms as far as she could around him and felt him do the same. “I leave for one day, and you raise the dead,” she said.

“Well, I have to keep busy somehow when you’re away!”

“That was...that was a really sweet thing to do, Yes Man. They looked...on their way to happy. I guess we sort’ve, er, screwed them over, but you...I don’t know. That was good, what you did. Have I ever told you I, um, adore you?”

“Yes, but I could stand to keep hearing it,” he said, and she could hear the blush in his voice.

She laughed and leaned back to beam up at him. Her face was streaked with dirt, her cheeks pink from the sun. “Hey.”

“Did you have a good day?”

She nodded. “I did. I’m still having one. It just got better.”

“Are we ok now?”

“I don’t think we ever weren’t ok. Did that make sense?”

“Yes. I know what you mean.”

“Wow, I’m tired… It sure would be nice if there were somebody big and strong around to help me…”

“You sure are silly,” said Yes Man, and scooped her into his arms. He carried her back to the Lucky 38, where Arcade fussed over her, made her lie on the couch with ice on her swelling knee, made her drink two bottles of water before he’d let her touch the sarsaparilla because she was dehydrated. She smiled and endured his concern happily. She kissed him on the cheek, making him blush and turn away, muttering to himself.

“I wonder if we’ll see them again,” she said.

“Oh, who knows,” said Yes Man. “But probably. Everyone comes through the Strip sooner or later.”

“I hope they can forgive us,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder if we did the wrong thing, but...but they’re on their own now, I guess, so...so the rest is up to them.”

“That’s how it is for everyone,” said Yes Man. “I think they’ll be alright.”

The Courier fell asleep on the couch and Yes Man pulled a blanket over her. Then, leaving part of his conscious watching her sleep to make sure he would notice if she stirred or had a nightmare, he dove back into House’s databases. There was a lot left to uncover, and it was about time he found something to do with his nights.


	14. Helplessly Hoping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Courier remembers and important detail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...pretty messed up you can't reunite Christine and Veronica in-game huh.
> 
> Thank you so so much to all of you for reading and commenting! <3

The Courier cried out in her sleep and shot upright; an instant later she woke wild-eyed and panting, whimpering. Her hands scrambled around, clutching blindly at the sheets. “No, no, help,” she said, nearly falling out of bed as she reached down to grab the knife and pistol she kept tucked beneath the bed.

Yes Man rolled forward, alerted immediately to turn his attention to the bedroom when she woke. “Six, it’s ok, you’re in our room in the Lucky 38,” he said. “You’re safe.”

She didn’t seem to hear him, or if she did, the words had no effect. She began to cry. 

“I’ve woken Veronica, she’s on her way up,” said Yes Man. “Is there anyone else I should get, or anything else I can do?”

Six’s teeth were chattering. She didn’t answer. When the elevator slid open she gasped and pressed herself back against the headboard, fumbled with the gun, struggling to level it with shaking hands, using her knees to support the weight of the barrel. Veronica, who’d been warned she was armed, froze and held up her hands.

“It’s Veronica, Six,” she said. “Put the gun down.”

“Stay back,” Six sobbed. “Don’t touch me, I’ll hurt you.”

And brave, dauntless Veronica walked across the room, plucked the gun out of Six’s hands, and set it out of reach on the ground. “You won’t hurt me,” she said. “And no one’s going to hurt you.”

Yes Man wasn’t sure if Six knew where she was or who they were. She tried to grab the knife but couldn’t get her hands to close around it. Veronica took it from her easily, tossed it behind her.

Six’s hands spasmed, clutched at empty air. “What...you do to me? What’s wrong with me,” she said, bringing her hands to her face. She felt at her face, pressed the scars and the cavity in her cheek where her upper molars had been. She began taking quick, shallow breaths, made a high keening noise.

“Veronica, please take her hands, sometimes when she gets like this, she tries to hurt herself,” said Yes Man. “I would do it, but...I might hurt her.”

Veronica took Six’s wrists, eliciting a wail from her. “No,” she said, trying to jerk away, but Veronica was strong and overpowered her. Six leaned back and banged her head against the wall, twisted and banged it again, harder. Veronica yanked her forward and wrapped her arms around her, pressed Six to her chest, and without wincing bore the bruising Six gave her from the thrashing of her elbows and knees. “Sh,” said Veronica, and began to rock. 

Six’s struggling slowed as Veronica continued to rock them both gently back and forth. “This is how I used to calm Christine down when she had a nightmare,” Veronica whispered. “She liked it, too. I’ve got you, Six. You’re safe.”

Six stopped moving except for the trembling and faint shudders as she caught her breath. Then she slowly leaned back, still in Veronica’s embrace but no longer pressed to her. “Ronica?” she said. “I’m sorry, sorry, what...where…”

“You’re in your room, in the Lucky 38,” said Veronica.

“Where is he?” Six said, getting agitated as she looked around. “Where’s...oh.” When she saw Yes Man she slumped, held her arms out to him. He rolled forward and she leaned into him, clutching one of Veronica’s hands.

“Hold me?” she mumbled.

He carefully wrapped his arms around her.

Still trembling, she began to weep silently. “I’ve done bad things,” she whispered. “It’s going away. I can’t remember. I just know it.”

Veronica stroked her hair. It had grown out again around her ears in a wild, fluffy mess. “Let it go,” she said. “You can’t take it back and you can’t make yourself remember. Just let it go.”

“No, no, I have to remember,” she muttered. “It’s important.”

“You had a bad dream, Six. It doesn’t mean it really happened,” Veronica said, though she sounded unsure. It always made her uneasy, when Six got like this, insistent upon remembering some atrocity from a past life.

Slowly Six turned to look at her, a haunted expression on her face. “Her name...say it again.”

“Whose name?”

“Her. The one.”

“...Christine?”

Six’s brow furrowed. Veronica watched as with tremendous effort she tugged some memory up from the depths, dredged it from the bottomless black sinkhole in her mind, and recognition dawned in her eyes. Six’s eyes widened and her lips parted as she stared at Veronica, who felt her stomach drop.

“Christine,” Six whispered. “I know her. I remember. It just...I’m so sorry, Veronica, I don’t know how I...it just clicked, somewhere, how could I not have...I know where Christine is. It must be the same Christine.”

It seemed so unreal that Veronica could not at once react or feel much of anything at Six’s words, only a resounding hollowness. She stared at her blankly for a moment and then said, “Where?”

Six told her, falteringly, with many pauses. And only then did Veronica begin to feel, something so gigantic it couldn’t all be felt at once, only in waves, and had no name, and then she began to cry.

“She’s alive?” she said, looking desperately at Six, who gave her a pained look in response.

“She was when I last saw her…Veronica, they, um. They did bad things to her there. I tried to get her to come with me, but she wanted to stay. But if you went…”

“Either way, I have to see,” Veronica said.

“I’m so sorry, Veronica.”

Veronica shook her head and placed a kiss on top of Six’s head. “No. Thank you, Six, thank you. I’ll find her.”

She packed her bag and left by dawn with the single Securitron Six had convinced her to take after much begging. It was quiet in the casino as Six sat alone at the table poking at her bowl of grits, Yes Man beside her.

(“This isn’t goodbye,” Veronica had said, her voice still ringing in Six’s ears, their parting playing over and over in her mind. She’d pressed another kiss to Six’s forehead and then stood up, moved away. “But I have to get her, Six.”

“I know. I know. I want you to. I wish I could go with you.”

“I’m not leaving you. I promise. I’ll be back. I’ll bring her back.”

“Please,” said Six, and then she left and was gone.)

“Do you think she...will she be...will we ever…”

“I think Veronica is extremely capable and with that Securitron helping her, well, anything in her way better watch out,” said Yes Man. 

“Why did you...get her, when I was...earlier,” Six asked.

“Well, I just thought she could help you calm down. It looks awful, those nightmares of yours. I just wanted to do whatever was best, to help you through it faster.”

“You normally do it,” she said.

“There are some things Veronica can do that I can’t. I hope it didn’t upset you, that I called her in, but I really thought it was the best thing to do, for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she can hold you better! She can just do all kinds of things that I’m just, well, not made for! It’s not my fault, I was built this way, but, well, you know how it is! I wasn’t meant for comforting, it’s just not my function.”

“You do a pretty good job anyway,” she said, tugging his arm into her lap and holding his hand. “You’re enough.”

“Thanks, Six. I don’t get too down about it because there are a lot of upsides, too. I know I can keep you safe. It feels really good, being able to protect you.”

They sat quietly for a while watching the sun rise over the desert through the windows. 

“I think I’ll miss her,” said Yes Man.

“Me too,” said Six. “But she’ll be back. I believe that she’ll be back.”

“It sure is...hard, knowing so many more people,” said Yes Man. “It’s...new. Having to worry about all of them. Because as much as you might want to, you can’t keep them all in a room and guard them, even though they’d be safe there. That’s just not how it works, I guess.”

Six laughed. “No, not really. Is it worth it?”

“Oh, yes. Definitely.”

“Sometimes I think, well, if it weren’t for Benny, we’d never have met, and that’d be...well...I’m glad. I wouldn’t have said that along the way, but now that I’m here, um...well, I’m just…”

“Despite it all, here we are.”

“Exactly.”

It was a quiet day. It rained all afternoon. When it stopped Six went out to splash in puddles, and then the sun set. Another day was over.

 

Out in the desert Veronica could at last see the Sierra Madre in the distance. She paused for a moment and wondered what she would do if Christine wasn’t there, if it was another Christine, not her Christine. Then she shoved the thought aside. It was no use. She needed to act, not to think. So she walked on not knowing what it was she was going towards, but going all the same.


	15. Nothing Was Delivered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes Man and the Courier visit a Mojave tourist attraction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guys believe I wrote and named a fic after The Byrds' 1968 country rock album because I cannot.
> 
> Three more chapters to go after this!
> 
> Thanks so much to all of you for reading and commenting, you've made this whole process very rewarding. :)
> 
> tumblr: [stilitana](https://stilitana.tumblr.com/)

It was early afternoon by the time the Courier and Yes Man arrived in Goodsprings. They’d left the Strip before dawn.

(“Yes Man,” she’d said, “I think I’m ready to go on a longer trip now. I want to show you where I come from.”

It was to be the trial-run for longer trips to come, their first long excursion since her operation, the gauge by which they would determine their next ventures into the desert.)

They’d made good time. She was steadier on her feet now, though she still used her cane, and when she got tired or when the road became particularly hilly, he carried her. For both their sakes they avoided rocks and mountains. The only trouble they’d encountered were a couple of bloatflies, which Yes Man made short work of.

“There it is,” she said, as they came around the bend. “Welcome to Goodsprings, Yes Man. This is the first town I can ever remember being in.”

“I’m so glad I get to see it,” he said.

She showed him the winding paths by the water pumps where Sunny Smiles first taught her to shoot Geckos. As they walked she chatted away to Yes Man, told him everything that came to mind. She told him how Sunny had to do most of the work but was very nice about it, didn’t mention that the Courier hadn’t managed to land a single shot, and then changed her tactics, taught her to make medicine powder instead, and didn’t get upset when the Courier came back six times to ask her what ingredients she was supposed to be looking for.

There was the gas station where she lost her first game of Caravan to Ringo, the doctor’s house high on the hill where she’d woken up calm because forgetting is not so bad before you realize you had things to forget, when the world is wide and blissfully empty. There was where the empty little pit in her heart had opened up when the doctor asked her name and, feeling like her mouth was full of marbles, with a garbled voice, she’d only been able to mumble,  _ Courier, I’m the Courier. Courier Six. _

(“Sorry, little lady,” he’d said. “I fixed up your head as best I knew how. Guess I missed a spot.”

She hadn’t known what he was apologizing for. Lacking the words to tell him it was alright, she just smiled and pressed the back of her hand to the side of his face, nodded. It only made him look more devastated. Guilt and grief made him appear ancient. It took her awhile to figure out why.)

She brought Yes Man into the Prospector Saloon, where the jukebox had been repaired since her last visit and was playing a soft tune. Sunny was leaning on the counter chatting to Trudy, Cheyenne panting at her feet. They both immediately turned when the door opened and broke into huge smiles.

Sunny hurried over and hugged the Courier, then held her at arm’s length by the shoulders, looking her up and down. “Hey there, Courier!” she said. “Been a while since we had a celebrity in the Prospector, ain’t it, Trudy?”

Trudy nodded and grinned, and then both women sized Yes Man up.

“You’re something of a Securitron magnet, ain’t you?” said Trudy. “Damn things just can’t keep away from you.”

“She means that in a nice way,” the Courier whispered to Yes Man.

Sunny laughed. “Come sit down!”

The Courier followed her to the bar and sat on a stool, Yes Man rolling along behind.

“What happened?” Sunny said, pointing at the cane.

“Got shot in the head,” said the Courier.

“Again?”

“Uh, no, the first two times were enough.”

Sunny laughed and Trudy glared at her, rolled her eyes. “It ain’t polite to laugh at that,” she said.

“Aw, she wants me to, Trudy,” said Sunny.

The Courier smiled, shrugged. “Yeah, it’s fine when Sunny does it. Um, Trudy, Sunny, this is Yes Man.”

“Oh, we know him,” said Sunny. “Trudy, show her the pictures.”

Trudy stepped to the side and pointed to the back of the bar, where three posters were hung on the wall. The Courier squinted. “Uh…”

“Bring ‘em over,” Sunny said. 

Trudy took them down from the wall and set them on the bar.

“These are...are these supposed to be us?” the Courier asked, looking at Sunny, then Yes Man.

“Sure are!” said Sunny. “You’re famous, word even got way out here! Some trader brought these through and gave ‘em to us when we told him we knew you. More people’ve been passing through to see the place where that crazy Courier sprung up.”

Six blushed. “Uh...my grave’s a tourist attraction?”

“When you put it that way, it does sound kind’ve weird,” said Sunny.

Six shrugged. “Stranger things, Sunny.”

She and Yes Man inspected the pictures. They were neat caricature-like drawings of her, or at least, the artist’s best guess, goofy pin-up style posters like she’d once seen in an Old World calendar. All three were slightly different. In one she wore an eye-patch and had long black waves of hair, two smoking pistols in her hands, cowboy hat tilted jauntily. In the second she had a red bob-cut and a low-cut shirt, was winking, smiling coyly, a diamond glinting from her canine. In the third her hair was cut close to the scalp and she wore goggles, had red, sultry lips and a jagged scar starting at the top of her head and traveling all the way down to her chin. Yes Man was in every one and they were posed, well...intimately. In the first she was pressing a kiss to his screen, while in the second she was held in his arms. In the third she was leaned up against him, shoulder cocked, resting her weight against a sledgehammer like it was a cane.  _ Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas! _ they all said across the top in bright blocky letters, overlayed on a background of caps, chips, and bottles of booze.  _ No Gods, No Masters,  _ they read across the bottoms in a loopy script.

Six’s shoulders started to shake, and before long she was tilting her head back, trembling with laughter, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. “Oh, man,” she said. “These are ridiculous.”

She turned and looked at Yes Man, face flushed and smiling. “What do you think? Which one looks most like me?”

“I don’t think whoever drew these has ever met you,” he said, sounding confused, bordering on agitated. “These don’t look anything like you, who does this person think they are, making these?”

“Aw, it’s ok, I don’t mind it,” she said, throwing an arm around him.

“Well, they got one thing right,” said Sunny, nodding at the two of them.

“Uh-huh,” said the Courier, beaming. “He’s my guy. Yes Man, you think if I gave one of these to Arcade he’d hang it up in his office?”   


“Oh, absolutely not,” said Yes Man.

Six laughed. “You never know.”

They said their goodbyes to the two women and then Six led Yes Man up the hill to the cemetery. She stood over the hole which nobody had ever bothered filling in with him at her side.

“Is this…”

“My very own shallow grave,” she said.

“Oh…”

There were trinkets left around the grave like offerings. It was...well, an odd feeling, looking at the place where she'd been left for dead, seeing how it had become something like a shrine. There were burnt-out candles and caps, little bits of shiny glass or beads, a broken watch with initials engraved on the back of it, toys and sealed envelopes and figures whittled from bits of wood. She was careful not to touch any of it, not to disturb the fragile atmosphere around the grave, the hopeful, melancholy feeling, like the inside of an abandoned cathedral. It was her grave, but she had the sense that all of this had very little to do with her, that it had grown beyond her somehow. All of them tied inexorably together, everybody hurtling towards the same fate.

The gravedigger had left his shovel leaned against the fence. 

Six thought about picking it up, thought about filling the grave in. That would be a neat gesture, a gesture like something out of a book, and if this were a story it would mean absolution and rebirth, it would mean she had conquered her own death, that she was risen and new and whole and moved on forever. But none of that was so. Symbolic gestures aside, the grave wasn’t some distant point in the past quickly receding from her. It was the past and the future, it lived on in her, it would always be there waiting in the wings. She could fill the grave in and feel powerful, for a moment, but it wouldn’t mean anything, it wouldn’t somehow protect her.

She could wait for the wind to blow the sand as it always did, for the desert to fill it in on its own, as it did all things, slowly wearing away at the world, eroding and covering over their tracks.

Six stared at the grave and said, “I’m not dead yet, fuckers. You’re not so lucky. I ain’t done yet, I ain’t finished.”

She opened her pack and took out a bullet, tossed it into the hole. It was one of the ones the doctor had dug from her skull. He’d kept both and given them to her when she asked for them, morbidly compelled to carry around the things that had nearly killed her. So she put one in the grave and kept the other in her pocket. Then she leaned up and kissed the edge of Yes Man’s screen.

“How many people can say they’ve done that on their grave?”

“That might be just you, Courier Six. Among some other things.”

“Mostly good, I hope?”

“Oh, definitely.”

They set off towards home, the light falling fast around them.


End file.
